


Shades of Darkness

by kcscribbler



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Crew as Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Star Trek: Generations Fix-It, Star Trek: Into Darkness Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24795619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kcscribbler/pseuds/kcscribbler
Summary: No one is more surprised than the newly-resurrected James T. Kirk, when he opens his eyes on an unfamiliar Starfleet Medical bay and a crew nearly forty years his junior. Meanwhile, as the fabric of space and time begins to slowly unravel around what Should Not Be, young Jim finds himself trapped in the ghostly spirit-world of the Nexus, trying to find his way home as his crew desperately search for a way to reach him. Only Time will tell if they can; before Captain Picard can convince a confused Enterprise captain to leave that elusive Valhalla to face death again on Veridian III – or before the Nexus wreaks havoc across a universe it was never intended to enter.
Comments: 35
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This was one of my more wacko off-the-wall crossovers, written purely for fun, so enjoy my particular brand of madness along with me if you like. 
> 
> And do remember, that whatever happens, I am a firm believer in happy endings.

**Chapter One**

"And so, after Mendel's development of what is now commonly referred to as the 'emotive algorithm,' the usage of the universal translator became widely relied upon as a secondary implement in ambassadorial negotiations, due to its ability to detect the subtleties of linguistic emotives which can sometimes slip by the most observant of non-artificial mediators. Any questions over this module?"

Twenty-four pairs of eyes in various stages of everything from resignation to polite boredom blink back at her. With a silent prayer for patience to whatever deities of the universe may be listening, she presses the button on the holo-padd to change the overhead screen to the week's homework assignment. The action simultaneously sends the assignment to each student's work-padd, producing a chorus of groans and beeping of data-entries as reminders are set up on two dozen electronic devices. "Then if there are no other questions, you are free to spend the remainder of the class preparing for next week's presentations. If you intend to work with your presentation partner, please be courteous to those studying around you."

With only ten minutes left in this class period, she decides to ignore the two in the back who have obviously been playing a game on their padds for the last half of her class, because it will be their own fault if they fail and she is not here to babysit a couple cadets riding through the Academy on their parents' high-ranking uniform shirt-tails. Besides, she has learned the hard way not to judge a book by its cover; it is just possible (highly doubtful, but possible) that one of them could be their next great starship captain, despite his or her appearance.

When one of them starts coughing because he accidentally ingested his chewing gum, she rolls her eyes and revises that theory. Was she ever this young and stupid?

Not for the first time, she wonders if she did the right thing, agreeing to teach a few courses at the Academy while they're grounded here, waiting for their new assignments. Waiting to see if the _Enterprise_ is even salvageable…waiting to see if someday the powers-that-be will figure out what really happened up there, miles above the Earth…waiting to see if their captain will even wake up, or just quietly slip away from them one day. Five weeks, since they nearly fell out of the sky but for the terrible sacrifice of James Kirk, and she still hasn't gotten used to the idea that the man was, and may still be for all intents and purposes, _dead_.

So here Lieutenant Nyota Uhura sits, grading mediocre papers from Starfleet cadets on the Communications track for the second week in a row, and wondering if this will be her life for the next six months; because either she has to wait around for the _Enterprise_ to be rebuilt, or take another deep space assignment, and the latter is not at all appealing. Spock has made it quietly clear he has no intention of leaving Terra until Kirk wakes up, regardless of Starfleet order or personal circumstance, and while it's a little annoying that he won't even consider following her to a different posting she gets it, really. She has no idea what sort of relationship her proud Vulcan boyfriend has with the man currently lying unconscious in Starfleet Medical halfway across the campus, but it's kind of sweet, kind of sad, and all kinds of strange. And while she knows Spock loves her and no one else that particularly romantic way – despite this, she knows that wherever he goes in the galaxy, Spock will somehow always return to Jim Kirk.

And though she probably would never have admitted it before the man had to go and die for his ship, she would much prefer to keep Kirk around too. But if it's another couple months, and the captain still is in a coma? She will go nuts, just waiting around here for something that may never happen.

Jim would never blame her for leaving, in fact would probably give her his blessing; but she honestly doesn't know if Spock would ever forgive her.

The bell rings for dismissal, dispensing these morose thoughts with an impressively ear-splitting screech, and she watches the students hurry from the room in varying stages of excitement. Hers is the last period of the day, and they're obviously eager to begin their weekends.

Lucky them.

She clears the holo-screen, and takes the next twenty minutes to finish grading the last batch of research papers the students had turned in this week, so that the grades can reach their inboxes before Friday evening. Another thirty minutes and the rest of her paperwork is done, the messages sent, the grades filed, and she can finally close up shop. Maybe she can call up Christine Chapel for a last-minute girls' night; she definitely deserves it.

Only then, does she see her comm-unit has been blinking with six missed calls and a variety of messages. The majority are from the Medical wing; McCoy has tried to get hold of her in the last two hours, apparently, but there's also a couple text messages from Hikaru, who has taken it upon himself to be the central clearing house for the remaining _Enterprise_ crew's fast-moving gossip chain, while they're grounded here on Terra.

She flips open the communicator to read the messages and then nearly drops the instrument while trying to snatch up her jacket and tote bag. She's out the door in ten seconds, and halfway across the quadrangle in ten more.

_He's waking up._

_Also, your boyfriend just pissed off Admiral Barrett by interrupting her and telling her to finish her debrief in writing because "urgent matters required his attention elsewhere." LOL_

* * *

"Hold it!"

A firm hand blocks his entry into the ward, propelling him backward with a force that is surprisingly strong, and unsurprisingly familiar. After all these weeks spent in too-close proximity over a common target, their wary truce has mellowed into something more resembling friendly animosity than anything else, though he would never admit as much to the insufferable human.

"Decon, now, or you're not goin' anywhere near that room. No shortcuts, not when we're this close. God knows his immune system's nothing special on a good day, and this isn't one of them."

Spock refrains from the appallingly human habit of rolling his eyes, but he knows the instructions are both valid and unable to be circumvented; so obey he does, and within one-hundred-eighty seconds is on the other side of the decontamination sonics, uniform hat in hand and (he believes) betraying no signs of his hurried rush across the Starfleet campus. If he is fortunate, the hapless cadet he accidentally bowled over in the quadrangle did not recognize him.

"I received your message, Doctor. Is –"

"He's not really awake, yet, but he's fidgety," McCoy replies, thankfully without commenting on his own agitation. The physician gives him a knowing look as they move down the white, sterile corridor. "Looks like he's actually dreamin' now, not just unconscious, and he opened his eyes for a minute. I don't think he was actually seeing anything, but it's a start."

"You are certain –"

"His vision's been repaired from the radiation burns, yeah; tests show his visual cortex is being stimulated, it was just that he wasn't really aware." What is likely supposed to be a reassuring elbow in his side, which he ignores. "I figure it'll just be a matter of hours now before he actually comes out of it. 'Course, knowing him, he'll prove me wrong and take another month to wake up, just to be a pain in the ass."

Spock's eyebrow inclines. "That would be highly irregular, medically speaking."

A snort. "This whole shebang has been _highly irregular_. I still can't believe you managed to talk us out of trouble over it, Spock."

He clears his throat, uncomfortable over the fact that for the first time in his life, he has deceived his superiors outright, lying to a Starfleet board of admirals and destroying evidence which would betray just exactly what had happened aboard the _Enterprise_ that fateful day. But he and McCoy had agreed, no one could truly know what had taken place, no one could get their hands upon the formula the doctor had developed – because the consequences of it falling into the hands of such as Marcus and Khan would be far too great. And while most of what Spock had done he had been able to excuse as lies of omission, given that Montgomery Scott and McCoy were the ones actually altering the _Enterprise_ 's data banks, the knowledge that he had successfully carried out such a deception did not sit well with his conscience.

Still, for Jim? He would do far worse, and with less conscience, if needed.

Now, they enter the room which has become so familiar over the space of the last thirty-nine days. He does not mentally name the hours and minutes, though he knows them well; for they do not matter now, if Jim is waking up – because that is what they have all been waiting for, been working for, this entire time. Everything that has happened in the last five weeks will not have been done in vain, if he wakes and is himself.

And if not? He does not dare contemplate the possibility, for he knows McCoy has already run through the frightening scenarios in his mind, and he does not wish to add to that unease. Brain-scans show clearly that the man lying in the bed is indeed Jim Kirk, and only Jim Kirk, so they should be able to rest easy in the knowledge that Khan's blood has not changed him mentally; but that does not mean there will not be long-term repercussions from this event, either traumatically, emotionally, or physically.

They can only wait.

"His heartbeat's up, that's a good sign – it's almost normal now," McCoy murmurs, almost to himself, as he inspects the monitors. "In fact, it's a little fast," he adds, glancing down at the still figure on the bed.

"Is that cause for alarm, Doctor?"

"I doubt it, just means he's fighting his way back. But I want to keep an eye on it, in case blood pressure issues result from the irradiation reversal. Whoa, that's new!"

The captain's pale face has scrunched up as if he is simply waking from a nap – Spock has caught him asleep at his desk enough times to know the look – and his head moves slightly to one side.

"That's it, Jim. Take your time, though, nobody's goin' anywhere." McCoy adjusts a monitor setting and steps back, patting the man's shoulder gently through the hospital gown.

"Doctor, how long –"

"I got no idea, Spock! I'm a doctor, not a fortune teller. He'll wake up when he's damn well ready!"

"A sound observation, Doctor, though I was hoping for a more scientific analysis," he replies dryly.

"I can still kick you outta here, you know."

His response is lost in the sudden commotion which results in James Kirk returning to consciousness as he does nearly everything else in his life – with as much drama as possible. Arms flailing like a dying cephalopod, lungs gasping for breath, startled eyes darting around the ward, he takes them both completely by surprise for a second or two before McCoy jumps into action.

" _Holy_ mother of - Jim! Hey!" He grabs the weak hand which flops his direction and pushes its owner back to the pillow with a firm grip. "Calm down, already! Spock, gimme a hand here?"

He steps forward, and sees blue eyes shoot over the physician's shoulder toward him, widening slightly with what looks like recognition – and then the man relaxes, slowly going limp and blinking at his surroundings with what looks like weary confusion.

"Jesus, you know how to scare a man." McCoy releases the captain's wrist and glances at the heart monitor. Sees the numbers returning to a normal range, and huffs out an amused breath. He looks back down at the bed, shaking his head. "You with me now, Jim?"

Kirk blinks again, slowly, eyes traveling around the room, and then they return, fastening oddly on Spock's face for a moment. When he speaks, it's with an oddly stilted inflection. "Where am I?" he asks, voice hoarse with disuse.

"Starfleet Medical, the research wing, on Terra. Your precise location is being kept secret to avoid the intrusion of the press for as long as possible." Spock's eyes narrow as this information does not appear to bring any relief or recognition. "Do you remember the events which landed you here, Captain?"

Kirk blinks up at him, eyes strangely piercing. "Why am I in the research wing, and not the primary recovery wing?"

McCoy glances over the captain's head, meeting his eyes with a helpless look that clearly asks whether or not Kirk should be told the truth. Spock unfortunately has had enough experience to know that if not told the truth, Kirk has a habit of discovering said truth in short order, so it is more expedient to simply, as they say, _get it over with_ the first time around.

"Because Doctor McCoy's method of…resuscitating you, involved experimental measures with Khan's blood, which we were forced to keep secret and then destroy, for fear of them falling into the hands of Admiral Marcus's associates. You were clinically dead for nearly twelve hours, Captain, and have been in a coma for over a month. Khan has been returned to cryo-storage, and Section 31 has been disbanded under Starfleet order, under the insistence of Admiral Barrett, who incidentally was also Captain Pike's former First Officer. There have been multiple changes in the chain of command while you have been…unconscious."

Kirk's eyes widen, though Spock is somewhat mystified at the lack of grief over the reminder of Captain Pike's death, not so long ago. "I…wait." He reaches up an unsteady hand, pinches his forehead. "You mean…Khan, as in, Khan Noonien Singh?"

McCoy pauses in the act of calibrating the cardio-oxygenation sensor, and slowly turns back toward the bed. "Jim," he says cautiously. "How much do you remember, from before you went into the warp core chamber?"

"The – oh, God." The captain's face has gone an alarming shade of white, and Spock steps forward in alarm. "Bones?"

"Jim, what is it? Y'need to calm down; whatever it is, you don't need to worry about it today, okay?"

"Bones, what year is it?"

Both of them stop, and stare in surprise at the apparently inapropos question. Kirk glances at the two of them, then around the room and back again, eyes flashing in what looks like increasing panic.

"What year is it!"

"2259, Jim," McCoy replies quietly.

Kirk turns even more pale.

"Doctor, something is wrong." Spock edges closer to the bed, because perhaps physical proximity will allow him the insight which he has not had from his former distance. Something has been…off, this entire conversation, something he cannot quite put his finger on.

"You think!"

"Captain, perhaps you should rest," Spock suggests, hoping that the non-threatening suggestion may calm the man enough to help them ascertain what precisely is the problem, be it psychological or mental or emotional – or a combination of the three.

"I – no, that – Spock, I…" Kirk trails off, swallows hard as if he is going to be physically ill.

"Sir?" He settles cautiously on the edge of the bed, because the man looks like he is on the verge of a panic attack. While the unfortunate occurrence would be justified, given past recent events, delaying it would be preferable, and so he reaches out slowly in an effort to offer physical contact. He knows Jim is a tactile human, and in truth he would not object to the reassurance himself, after the events of thirty-nine days ago. "Is there something –"

He startles, as suddenly his hand is practically snatched with what can only be desperation, and before he can realize what is happening his fingertips are being placed into a rough approximation of the _kash-kau_ position, something Jim should know nothing of as he and Kirk have never shared a mind-fusion.

This would in itself be cause for shock and trepidation, justifiably so, for no human should ever enter a mind-meld of any magnitude without being made aware of its consequences, and no Vulcan should ever perform one without being prepared, as the consequences themselves can be disastrous should the minds not be compatible – but that is not why only a moment later he stumbles back from the bio-bed, reeling with what that only seconds-long, brief contact has imparted to him.

McCoy's alarmed exclamations, punctuated by a series of quite colorful Terran swear words, ring dully in his ears over the knowledge which for a moment blots out sound and sight, before the sensory overload returns to normality.

"What the _hell_ was that!"

"Doctor, control yourself," he manages, through a tense jaw, and sees the man shake his head in apology.

"Sorry. Look, I just knocked him out with a mild dose of pentathol-C, he's not allergic to that and it won't keep him out for long, but that scared the devil out of me. What _was_ that?"

Spock shakes his head, trying to reel his senses back under control. He had not been prepared for that.

"Here, sit down, you look like you've seen a ghost. _Heard_ a ghost? I dunno, whatever that voodoo is, it did a number on you. You want I should give you something for the headache?"

"Negative, Doctor. I am quite all right."

"Then what in heaven's name even was that?"

"That, Doctor, was a rough approximation of a mind-meld, or mind-fusion – a Vulcan mind-joining. It is a highly intimate mental act which the captain should know nothing of, or at least should not know how to initiate, much less be able to do so with me, as I have never mind-melded with him. No human should be able to initiate such a mental channel without considerable reciprocal practice in the act."

"That's…alarming." The doctor looks more than slightly frightened. "I have no idea if Khan had any telepathic abilities, but if he did, and they're comin' through that serum and being manifested like that, we have a major problem."

"I do not believe that to be the case."

"You…how can you know that?"

"I did not gather the impression, through the mind-meld, that the abilities were anything other than simply and innately human; I received no indication of any enhanced, superhuman qualities."

"Oooookay? So?"

"So, that is not the problem at hand, Doctor."

"What is it, then?"

Spock moves over toward the bed, but remains a safe distance from the man once more lying still and pale against the white sheets. He looks up to see McCoy watching him, posture tense with protective concern, and their eyes meet over the whirring med-scanner.

"The problem, Doctor…is that this man is not Captain Kirk. Or more accurately, not _our_ Captain Kirk."


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

When she arrives at the looming towers which house Starfleet Medical, she's not surprised at the small flurry of activity, given that McCoy is probably somewhere between professionally optimistic and pinging off the walls at the possibility of Kirk waking up – but she's _not_ expecting the barely-controlled chaos which meets her as she rounds the corner toward that accursed room which has become so familiar over the last thirty-nine days.

"I don't care who you have to recall from leave, I want Security here and I want them here _now_ , and it better be somebody who won't spill everything they know until we figure out what's going on!" McCoy looks up from his communicator as she approaches, and holds up a hand, barring her progress. Surprised at the uncharacteristically confrontational action, she halts in the middle of the corridor. "You know as much as I do. No, for God's sake don't come over here, the last thing we need's some journalist wondering why there's so many of the command crew congregating in this place. I'll call you when I know something. Thanks, Scotty." The instrument snaps shut, and the doctor turns on one heel, shaking his head with the air of a man totally weary with life. It's not a good look on him, and while he's not looked himself for weeks now, this is a whole new level of despair that he's struggling to hide.

Fear, cold and choking and aching, chills the air of the corridor, and she's afraid to ask. Has Kirk had a relapse? Has the worst happened? But someone has to hold it together here, and if McCoy looks this bad then she can't imagine how Spock is dealing with the news. So ask, she does.

"Leonard, what's going on?"

"Well…" The man sighs, and motions for her to follow him, not into Kirk's room but into the glass-windowed observation room next door. Not for the first time in five weeks, she wonders if it's just recent events, or if McCoy has always looked suddenly so much older than his few decades. "Look, we're not really sure."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning the events are…currently inexplicable," Spock answers from inside, where she can see he is standing at the window, staring at the motionless figure on the bed in the next room.

"Hey." She keeps her voice soft, refraining from touching him like she wants to – she can see from his face, his eyes…something's happened, something he can barely handle. Considering that less than forty days ago she only barely managed to stop him from enacting ancient Vulcan justice on a superpowered war criminal with his bare hands, that's not a good indicator of his mental balance. "You okay?"

"I…" He exhales, slowly, and flicks a sideways glance at her for only a moment before turning back to the window. "I am confused, Nyota."

She blinks, now also confused, and not a little frightened, because that's the last thing she expected him to say.

"And that's the understatement of the century," McCoy snarls under his breath as he fiddles with the computer controls on the sole monitor in this observation room. "Spock, all the scans say the same thing they have this entire time. I've done every kind of bio-scan and neurological scan I can possibly think of, even one of those new electrodictalygraphs, and they all say that nothing has changed. His brainwave signature is _exactly the same_!"

Ice inches down her spine at the implications. "Are you saying you're expecting it not to be?" she demands.

"I'mma let you explain that one while I run one last test," McCoy says in an aside to Spock, giving her what's probably supposed to be a reassuring look as he leaves the room, cranial scanner in hand.

She turns toward Spock, who looks, for lack of a more Vulcan term, totally freaked. Not good.

"Talk to me, _ashal-vas_. Something happened in there." (1)

"It did." Spock still hasn't fully looked away from the window, so she steps closer to stand beside him and they watch as McCoy performs an in-depth brain scan, lobe by lobe, on the unconscious man.

"And that something was alarming?"

"Most definitely."

God, it's like prying open an Aldebarran shellmouth. "Spock, if you can't use Standard, then use Vulcan, but talk to me. I'm assuming he woke up?"

"Affirmative."

"And…?"

Spock finally turns and looks at her, eyes troubled. "The captain was…not himself."

"Okay," she says cautiously. "That's…we can deal with that, right?"

"Negative, Nyota – I mean that as in the literal sense, _not himself_."

"I don't understand."

"The captain attempted, with mild success, to initiate a mind-meld with me after displaying signs of confusion and requesting to learn the stardate."

"A mind-meld? How does he even know the procedure? And are you even mentally compatible?"

It's a highly dangerous process if they are not. She should know, because it was a very disappointing discovery to find that she and Spock were not mentally compatible in any way. She had been afraid that knowledge would be the end of their romantic relationship, and it had been a highly difficult roadblock for some time, with Spock struggling to decide whether or not he could depart from Vulcan culture enough to accept the fact that his intended, his possible bondmate, might never share that crucial part of a Vulcan bonding.

And in the wake of Vulcan's destruction three years ago, despite their budding physical relationship she would gladly have let him mentally bond with another, knowing how beneficial it might have been for him to have that mental refuge; it would not have made a difference to their romantic relationship, for Spock is nothing but loyal in every sense of the word – but they had not known of anyone who was compatible with his uniquely hybrid mental chemistry, in fact most Vulcan healers had recommended he not even make attempts at mental contact due to the danger involved. Had they known Kirk was mentally compatible, it might have strengthened the command of the Enterprise immensely in addition to assisting Spock personally; this is very intriguing knowledge, and its implications are staggering.

"Apparently, we are highly compatible, but we have never even discussed the possibility. He should know nothing of the act itself, much less be able to initiate the contact without lengthy practice."

"And because of that, you think he's not himself?"

"Not only this; because I also saw into his mind during that brief contact, Nyota – it is not Jim. I cannot explain the alterations, but they nonetheless exist."

She's still more than a little confused, and Spock is less than forthcoming when it comes to private Vulcan matters, so she asks to see the room's video footage of the events instead of prying more information out of him; it will be less painful for both of them.

She watches the screen in silence, and then pauses the recording close to the end, glancing up sharply. "You're right, this isn't Jim."

"You too?" McCoy asks, sighing, as he re-enters the room. "You know I have to have more medical evidence than just two random people's words for that, no matter how well they know the man."

"Doctor, I am a linguist. I read _body language_ , and I dissect inflection, phonology, variations in pitch and syntax – none of them are right. They're just…subtly wrong, somehow. I can't quite put my finger on what specifically are off in those areas, though, that's the strange thing." She rewinds the footage and replays it, frowning. Without more sophisticated analyzation software or being spliced into the 'Fleet comms mainframe, she doesn't have the tools to really dig deeper. "It's almost as if it's still him, but something crucial about him has just…changed."

The diagnostic screen in front of the physician spits a rejected data-tape at him with an indignant _thonk_ , and he leans forward with a low exclamation to read the accompanying information on the screen. "What the…Spock, look at this for me, will you?"

Spock is at the monitor in two swift steps, scanning over the report. His eyebrows contract in a frown that speaks volumes, and his fingers soon turn into a blur as they hurriedly bring up accompanying diagrams.

Knowing better than to ask just yet, she replays the recording again. If she could only pinpoint what is so off about Kirk's voice…but again she is stymied by the fact that she, the expert, cannot quite put her finger on it. That in itself is alarming, because it means the change is likely at a cellular level, so deep that not even the foremost in the field can detect it.

"You said it's like he's still Jim Kirk, but something's changed him, Lieutenant?" McCoy suddenly asks from across the room.

"Roughly speaking, yes, Leonard. But I can't really explain why I feel that way, and why I can't at least pinpoint something concrete to back up that theory."

"Could that possibly result from his entire memory cortex being rewritten?"

She stares over the computer monitor at the two of them, and their grim expressions tell her the desperate truth – they are not simply hypothesizing.

"You're saying…" She slides into the chair behind her, stunned at the implications. "What, _exactly_ , are you really saying?"

"According to these results? His entire memory cortex is scanning as a totally different neural map from his previous scan – he had one taken on his entrance to Starfleet Academy six years ago. These scans produce a detailed mental fingerprint, so to speak, that's unique to the individual, and impossible to duplicate. It's how the 'Fleet can tell if an officer's memory has been tampered with, without resorting to telepathic intrusion; a memory scan can reveal distortions in the memory field that haven't been there before, variations in the neural map. Some small variations are to be expected over time, because new memories are always being built. But the core memories, the foundations of the map – like the identifying points of a fingerprint – will never vary, unless memories have been tampered with."

She nods to show she follows the explanation, and McCoy exhales in a rapid huff, leaning on the table with both hands. He shakes his head in exhaustion, closing his eyes for a moment before straightening back up and gesturing to the screen. "But this?" he continues quietly. "This isn't just memory damage, some tampering with the neural map, if you will. We're talking wholesale rewriting, a completely different mental fingerprint. Not even the same core identifiers. That would explain why it still felt like Jim's mind to you, Spock, but it wasn't _our_ Jim."

"You are implying, Doctor, that…"

"That somehow, we brought back the wrong one? I know it's not logical, Spock, but that's _exactly_ what I'm implying. I'm just hoping to God you can come up with a scientific explanation to prove me wrong."

* * *

"You're joking. You've _got_ to be joking."

"Doctor. Your human tendency to make fallacious statements in an effort to divert attention from your rampant emotionality is a most unprofessional habit. And furthermore –"

"Oh, for the love of _Christ_ , stow your baggage, the both of you, an' explain this t'me with a bit more logic an' a little less fairy tale!" Montgomery Scott's annoyed burr, more pronounced through lack of sleep, rings through the small room, crackling clearly from the video monitor. "I canna keep the Admiralty off your backs forever, y'know, and there's no way I can get off this bloody rock and just shoot off to New Vulcan without them wantin' to know the whys and wherefores!"

Three pairs of eyes glare at the video monitor, whereupon Scott merely blinks placidly back at them. Obviously, somewhere between Jupiter and the Warp Core Incident, their ever-loyal Chief Engineer grew a starshipload of patience in addition to a spine.

"Back it up, and start from the beginnin', Mr. Spock. Because what you're proposing sounds a wee bit like a bad Frankenstein holovid to me."

"I do not comprehend that reference, Mr. Scott. But there is sufficient precedent in Vulcan lore to lend credence to the theory, despite your and Doctor McCoy's understandable skepticism."

"He's right, Scotty," she interjects for the first time, leaning over in front of the monitor, and sees the man's eyes widen in surprise at her unexpected support of the theory. "Believe it or not, it's not as far-fetched as it sounds."

"And it sounds a whole lot of crazy, believe me," McCoy mutters, glancing nervously back toward the observation window and the sleeping occupant housed within the room beyond.

"Ooookay. Lay it on me then, because I'm not jetting off and leavin' our poor _Enterprise_ here all alone just to go taxicab some old Vulcan ambassador back to Earth based on no more than a Vulcan fairy tale – beggin' your pardon, Commander. But 'tis hardly logical, now is it?"

Spock's eyes close briefly in an obvious attempt to reboot his patience-with-humans supply, and she shoots Scott a sharp look which seems to get the point across. None of them have time to waste in senseless exchanges, not with this much at stake and with so little time left to them before someone leaks the truth to powers they very much do not want getting wind of what is actually happening here in this "experimental therapy" wing of Starfleet Medical.

Spock finally opens his eyes, calm once more at least to outward appearances. "Mr. Scott, you are the only remaining _Enterprise_ crew member other than myself and Captain Kirk with a Level Four computer rating and the command rank high enough to abscond with a ship and leave the planet undetected by masking your electronic trail. This must remain below Starfleet Command's surveillance levels until we ascertain the exact nature of what we are dealing with. If you are not capable of following those instructions without demanding explanations we are ill-prepared to offer, then –"

"Spock, you're just making things worse. Scotty, listen." She nudges her poor boyfriend out of the way slightly and folds her hands on the table in front of the monitor. Scott's honest face looks uneasily back at her. Spock is probably going to have a proper Vulcan meltdown over her Quick-notes version of this, but time is of the essence and while their CE loves Jim with all his heart the man's as stubborn as any Scotsman and he won't budge until he's got an explanation that satisfies him. "In Vulcan culture, the idea of an afterlife is different from that of most humans'. They believe that the soul, what they call the _katra_ , is the true essence of a life-form, and that it is merely housed in a convenient vessel, the physical body. When that body ceases to function, the soul is released into the afterlife, usually to be set aside in a collective receptacle for one's descendants to benefit from its presence and knowledge."

Scott blinks slowly. "Oookay, not my choice of a hereafter, bein' put in a jar for the little 'uns to ask questions of, but to each his own."

Spock's face is almost hilarious in its complete WTF-ery. She tries not to laugh, but McCoy makes no such efforts to hide his cackling behind his lukewarm coffee.

"That's…never mind. The important thing, is that they believe the soul is itself, an entity not bound by space or time – an _interdimensional_ entity."

"So, you're saying…what?"

"Extrapolating from that theory, it is possible that when we broke the laws of science by returning to life that which had already died, already passed beyond that barrier into the afterlife, we inadvertently called back, so to speak, the wrong _katra_ , or soul," Spock speaks up, his words somber, almost sad. "Not bound by the dimensions and bounds of science, space, or time, it is conceivable that by breaking those laws which were never meant to be broken, we unintentionally resurrected the essence of a different James Kirk; in all likelihood, that of the parent universe from which ours splintered, that from which Nero and Ambassador Spock originated."

"How d'you figure that?"

"From the brief mental contact I had with the man, I saw…events, which seem to corroborate that theory. And it would make the most logical sense, for such an event to occur between two universes which are already intertwined dangerously with each other's destinies. Each time a singularity occurs to distort the space-time continuum, it creates another rend in that fabric between the universes; it would be most logical for this interdimensional shift to occur between two such universes already containing multiple weak points in that continuum."

"Well…that's not good." Scott runs a hand over his face, pinches his forehead for a moment, elbow resting against the damaged engine plating he had been repairing when they'd comm-ed him. "How d'we switch him back, then?"

McCoy drops a medical tricorder with a clatter, muttering an apology as he scrambles after it, but she had already seen the color drain from his face – answering the question without words.

"Right now…we can't, Scotty."

"The devil we can't!"

"Mr. Scott…"

"No, you listen to me! That man died not twenty meters from where I'm standin' right now, and we are not going to just – just – let some bloody impostor just walk around like _he_ deserves to sit in Jim's chair up there!"

Spock's fingers tighten enough on the table edge that she hears the whine of bending durasteel.

"That's why we need you to get to New Vulcan, Scotty," the doctor interjects, for the first time putting himself into the conversation, and she is rather impressed at his calm; artificial though it may be, it's nonetheless reassuring. Leonard's either an excellent doctor, an excellent actor, or he's on much better drugs than she's been prescribed by her own therapist. Or all three. "If we've got any hope of fixing this, or even understanding it, we're gonna need help. And if there isn't any hope of fixing it…well…"

"We need to do what's best for Kirk," she says quietly. "And that may not be staying here, with us."

"Are ye serious!"

McCoy rubs a hand over his eyes. "I do not need another problem child right now, y'hear me?" he mutters, to no one in particular.

"Quite serious, Mr. Scott," Spock intones, completely ignoring both outbursts. "There would be little point in keeping up such a pretense when the outcome would only be harmful for both parties. The likelihood of this event's being capable of reversal is, in all probability, next to zero. We must prepare accordingly."

"To hell with that, sir!"

"Mr. Scott…"

"Dinna _Mr. Scott_ me, Commander!"

She raises an eyebrow, never having heard that particular tone from their mild CE before; recent events have changed them all, and while she's always known Scotty has a temper, this is almost mutiny-level rebellion. She's no psychiatrist, but she suspects at least a mild case of survivor's guilt, given what happened in Engineering that day.

_See what you've done to us, Jim?_

Honestly, it's a wonder any of them are able to function properly; and it's testament to the lives they live and the character of the man that's led them for the last three years, that they are still that functional, trauma after trauma.

"You are dangerously close to insubordination, Mr. Scott."

She looks over at Spock with a blink of incredulity, because seriously. Behind her, she sees McCoy throw his hands in the air with a resigned gesture of _I-can't-even_ and stalk over to the beverage replicator, where he punches a code in with a viciousness that threatens to crack the instructional window. She's not surprised when a shot glass of some amber-hued drink appears in the slot below a moment later and is tossed back with a grimace.

"Oh, and I suppose ye're gonna ask me for my bloody resignation too, eh? _Acting Captain_?"

"Okay, enough, both of you," McCoy finally interjects, with one hand shoving Spock back down into his chair before he can fully leave it and glaring at the vid-screen over their First's shoulder. "Cool it, or I'll relieve you both of duty and make Uhura Acting Captain until you can play nice together. God knows at least we'd get something done around here."

She snorts, because that's a _hell no_ , thank you, she wants no part of that cursed command chain. But it's the thought that counts, and so she hides a smile behind the data-padd she's using to return a flurry of messages from various _Enterprise_ crew members. Hikaru and Pavel have been told the truth, a very abbreviated version hidden under heavy encryption, but the others she merely informs that there is no change and the rumors are unfounded, because all they need is one idiot to leak the news and they will be sunk.

"No, you listen to me, and your precious logic can go to hell, Mr. Spock, because that man nearly dropped this bloody ship into a damn volcano goin' back for you on that very last mission before you got him demoted!"

"I am fully cognizant of those events, Mr. Scott, and your overly emotional restatement of them is completely –"

"Then why the devil are ye just givin' up on him?"

McCoy and Spock exchange a look that is equal parts pained and helpless, and she cannot help but be slightly weirded out by how strangely in-sync they have become without Kirk's polarizing influence to keep them balanced neatly at odds with each other.

"Scotty, are you even hearing what we're saying here?" the doctor interjects wearily. "We're not talking about a reversible medical condition. The body may be Jim's…but there's no way, medically speaking, to change his mind and soul back. I will not condone killing a man for sake of experimenting with another man's mind even if, let's say, that ended up being the only solution we could come up with. For God's sake, man, we've broken enough rules already – Jim would never want this!"

"I'm not suggesting anything of the kind, Doctor." Scott's frown turns into a grimace of distaste. "But I cannot help but think – if we ended up with the wrong Jim Kirk's soul, doesn’t that mean that someone else, somewhere, ended up with _ours_?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Ashal-vas – my Vulcan culling together of the prefix ashal-, a romantic endearment similar to our word darling or beloved; and the root word vas, meaning that which alleviates pain or distress.


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

"Like that's all we need, is two of them running around." If McCoy doesn't stop that, the man's going to need treatment for hair loss before he reaches fifty. Granted, with the track record they have, he probably thinks that eventuality is pretty unlikely, and for once she has to agree, his pessimism really isn't an overreaction. "And in the wrong bodies, yes! You have any idea the chaos they could cause in just two minutes, left alone and unsupervised?"

"That's even if we did figure out some way to find Jim and bring him back to try and make a swap of some kind. I'm not sure that would be possible, if his…vessel, so to speak, is already housing another _katra_. There's certainly no Vulcan precedent for such a procedure. Spock, any speculation?"

"None at this time, as these discussions are premature and are simply delaying our current plan of action." Yeah, he's not fooling anybody. Spock continues with a curt, "May I remind you that time is of the essence, Mr. Scott?"

"Aye, sir." Their Chief Engineer is nothing if not loyal, and while she knows Spock still has reservations regarding the man's ability to successfully run an entire division on a constitution-class starship without breaking every regulation on the books, Scott has proven his practical and tactical worth more times than they can recall. "They've still got most o'the ships grounded, though, sir; the blockade's still up around the planet. I dinna know if diplomatic travel is even being granted access right now, even from such a peaceful planet as New Vulcan."

She glances to her left, and sees the same look of dismay reflected in Spock's expression.

"Well if we can't get someone in, see if we can get patient zero _out_ ," McCoy drawls, without looking up from the medical reports which he is carefully erasing from the Starfleet database, to avoid being flagged in the system for suspicious eyes.

"Uh, Doctor. Blasting our way past a planet-wide Federation blockade is a court-martial offense."

Weary eyes glance her direction, eerily lit in reflection by the bluish tint of the monitor. "I just deleted fifteen more reports from the Starfleet Medical database, Lieutenant, and that's _after_ using an experimental serum and a whole lotta shady procedures to bring a man back from the dead, not to mention shoving a prisoner of war back into cryo-storage without a proper debriefing or interrogation. At this point, I think it's probably just a matter of time before they come down on me like a hoverbarge."

"Doctor." Spock looks troubled. "You are operating under my command. If anything, it will be I who –"

"You were relieved of command due to emotional compromise ten minutes after Khan was in custody and I was sure the _Enterprise_ wasn't gonna crash-land into the Bay, Spock," McCoy answers quietly. "Just because I didn't tell you that in the chaos doesn't mean it didn't go on the record."

Spock appears stunned, for a moment entirely without speech, and Scott's voice comes quietly through the vid-screen. "He's right, sir. It had to be done, y'know. Too many of the crew saw…well."

"Specifics are unnecessary, Mr. Scott. I am aware of my irrationality that day and the damage I did to the image of the _Enterprise_ 's command structure. Your actions were appropriate, as too many of the crew were witness to my lack of control."

"I did it so you couldn't be held officially responsible for anything you did for the next forty-eight hours," McCoy says dryly. "Not because you flipped your Vulcan lid for a while there and acted like a grieving _human_. Horror of horrors."

"Doctor." She shoots him a pointed look, which he returns with all the belligerence that comes of trauma-born familiarity, but he lets it drop without further comment. She has to hand it to the man; it was a pretty smart trick, because it recuses Spock of any blame for anything that happened in the immediate aftermath since he was officially on the books as medically relieved of duty. No one on the Board will know otherwise unless one of them makes a report saying so.

"Right, then I'd best be off, see what I can see about getting us off this planet, preferably without losing our commissions. I dinna get paid enough for this, that's for sure and certain..." Scott waves a spanner at them and promptly disappears from view, leaving as abruptly as he'd appeared on-screen, deep in the middle of repairwork on their poor ship and putting the fear of all the engineering gods into his subordinates.

Sighing, she stands and walks to the observation window, stretching slowly. It's a little ridiculous, how cramped she feels now from sitting too long poring over information that really hasn't been helpful to their cause, when she could pull a double shift on the _Enterprise_ and never bat an eye at the tedium. A yawn forces its way past her lips, and she blinks her vision clear just in time to get a look at the room beyond.

What the…

"Spock."

"Yes, Nyota." His voice is patient, but it's obvious he's being courteous only for her sake; his mind's a thousand parsecs away and his entire posture fairly screams _leave me alone, for the love of Surak_.

"You want to come over here a minute?"

Spock's eyebrow inclines a fraction, but strangely enough he does not move from the table. Seriously? She hadn't thought he was that weirded out, but perhaps she read him wrong. Or perhaps he's just being a pain in the ass, because he can do that when he's trying not to show emotion.

"Spock, come on. I get the feeling you need some convincing that this is still Jim, in some way; you're acting like it's a total stranger in there and that's only partly true."

His words are flat, far too controlled – yeah, he's freaked. "Partly is quite enough, Nyota."

"Spock, come on, you haven't even talked to him. He's still Jim on some level!"

"You have no evidence whatsoever to substantiate that claim."

She glances back toward the room. "Other than the fact that he's taken apart the bio-bed's sensor board and used it to defuse the magnetic seal on the ventilation shaft?" she asks dryly, already moving toward the doors. "We've probably got less than ten seconds to stop him from a prison break."

* * *

Spock learns an entirely new colorful metaphor by the time he reaches the door, courtesy of the swearing human physician close on his heels. Nyota is mere paces ahead of them, and trips the door sensor first, entering the room with the intent to stop their patient from making his escape.

From out of nowhere, a fast-moving blur knocks her into the nearest wall and then swings the room's portable magnification lamp at his head, which he in a split-second decision of Vulcan reflex does not duck, because if he does it will impact Doctor McCoy directly in the face. Instead he locks his heels and throws them both backward, triggering the door sensor and sending them both skidding into the hall. The lamp sails after them and smashes against the opposite corridor wall; he spares a moment to be grateful this experimental wing is at the moment deserted, and McCoy had had the foresight to send the rest of the staff home for the weekend.

He vaguely registers the doctor's strangled yelp as Vulcan muscle mass forces the air from his lungs, but he has no time to assist the man; obviously, this Kirk, whoever he may be, has come to the conclusion that they are a threat, and Nyota is still in the room with him.

Less than five seconds have passed before he is again barreling through the doorway, this time in a more defensive posture – but he stops short, and blinks in surprise. McCoy runs into his back a moment later and mutters something about being a physician, not a speed bump, before nudging around him and then pausing as well before giving a snort of muffled laughter.

"Like I said, Kirk. Not your universe's Uhura." Nyota's voice floats calmly down from where she's pinned their scowling patient against the biobed, one arm just inches from being dislocated behind his back and the lieutenant's knee in a very…precarious proximity to certain portions of the male anatomy.

"Told you I should have made her at least Acting First."

" _Really_ , Doctor."

"You two want to give me a hand with Captain Overreaction here?"

An indignant splutter.

"Look, we can do this the easy way and talk to each other like grownups, or I can break your arm and we can still talk to each other, you'll just be begging for painkillers throughout. Your call. You’re the one who’s been in a coma for over a month, you have zero muscle mass in that body right now."

Blue eyes blink in wary distrust at each of them in turn, though Spock cannot help but feel a chill of unease when they linger upon him for much longer than his two companions.

"I appear to be outnumbered, both physically and mentally, so I'll play your game for now, gentlemen. And lady. Or do you prefer the former?"

The knee shifts warningly. "Would you prefer being able to still have children one day?"

They are all surprised to hear a low laugh from the captain, who slowly straightens and turns as Nyota releases him to move across the room and stand by Spock. She glances up briefly. "You okay?"

"I am undamaged. Doctor McCoy appears to be his customarily short-tempered self as well."

"Screw you. And one of you owes me a new magni-lamp, that was not cheap."

Their patient appears to be studying them with a scrutiny that is eerily unlike their own captain's easy camaraderie – Spock has the feeling their every move is being catalogued, filed, and analyzed by a master tactician – and soon the man shrugs, perching himself on the edge of the biobed with a carefully unaffected ease.

"So, gentlemen. I do not appreciate being sedated against my will, especially when attempting to ascertain mission details, so would someone care to tell me where I am, with whom I am, and in what universe I am?"

"Well, he's not stupid," Nyota murmurs in his ear, as she moves across the room to a safe distance and stands, watching. No doubt, she is attempting to find and notate the differences in communications between this man and their own Jim.

"I sedated you because you telepathically initiated a mind-fusion with a Starfleet officer without his permission," McCoy interjects with what sounds like very real, almost physically chilling, righteous anger. "I dunno where you come from, but in this universe we call that _assault_."

Spock takes a step forward in alarm, for every vestige of color drains from Kirk's face at the words, and the man's eyes dart toward him in what looks like…horror?

"What do you – I didn't…Spock, I didn't think that was _possible_ , that a human could mind-meld with someone without their permission! I would never have tried that if I had known! Why have you never told me that?"

"Because I have never mind-melded with either you or with the real Captain Kirk," he snaps, before his composure can fully reform; this conversation is not one he is prepared to have. "He knows nothing of the process; its details have never come up in conversation."

"Wait, you're saying, your Jim and you have never…oh, God." The man turns a whole different shade of white. "That was a huge miscalculation on my part, Spock. I…I can only say I'm sorry. I made assumptions about your…level of familiarity, which obviously were incorrect."

"Obviously."

"I was just trying to prove who I was to you, because why else would you believe me?"

"Why, indeed."

"Spock." Nyota's voice washes over him like a wave of calm, an oasis in this _shi'koh-nar_ in which he has found himself wandering against his will so many times these last weeks. It is soft, gentle, in his ear and his alone. " _Ashayam_. If you're not ready for this, that's okay."

He takes a deep breath, dispelling the fog of emotion which has threatened to swamp his concentration at the resurrection of that mind-meld's memory. A look is all it takes for Nyota to nod and turn her attention to their distraught patient instead; one thing he appreciates about her is her almost inhuman respect for his privacy.

But if what this version of James Kirk says is true, then the mind-fusion and its consequences are not his fault. He did make assumptions, correct, but for a human they held a kind of logic, and to a panicking human, they likely seemed the most expedient method of conveying information. And, to call the event an assault is an overstatement, as he could certainly have broken the meld at any time and did not; the surprise of finding that he is mentally compatible with someone, much less with a human, had been actually… _exhilarating_ , he supposes is the closest equivalent human emotion.

"While Doctor McCoy's overprotectiveness does him credit as a physician, he is slightly overstating the seriousness of the telepathic intrusion," he offers, a simple olive branch. "While unexpected, the meld was the most expedient method of conveying information and I regard the action as most logical under the circumstances."

Some color returns to the captain's face at his words, though his eyes still look horrified at what he has unwittingly done. "A very gracious reassurance, Mr. Spock, which I may not deserve but certainly appreciate."

The human's words are oddly formal, proper – so unlike Jim's disrespectful familiarity and slang-riddled command style that it is positively jarring, coming from that figure, that face. The sense of _wrongness_ is rapidly increasing, the more contact he has with the man.

"So Leonard sedated you because of that. You're saying the sedation is why you woke up and tried to become a one-man army when you couldn't pull off an escape act?"

Kirk's eyes flick sharply toward Nyota at the question, and Spock is again struck by the realization that they are being observed closely, their differences no doubt being noted; whether out of curiosity, or to find weaknesses, he has yet to ascertain. While he does not sense danger toward her from this version of their captain, he does sense a surprised fascination which could be rooted either in attraction or simply in shock. Either way, his wariness only increases.

"That, and the discovery that my Starfleet access codes have been disabled. I have no idea what game you're playing, gentlemen, or why I appear to have slipped through time into another universe, but until I know why exactly you've brought me here you will forgive me for not feeling the most cooperative."

McCoy speaks up for the first time since his statements about the mind-meld, having stood back to observe for a few moments. "Your codes are disabled because you're still on medical leave, Jim."

"I should be able to override that with my alpha clearance, at least to view past mission logs and my own medical records. And I can access nothing in the database other than the beverage replicator, likely because it can be bypassed by a fingerprint scan. Oddly enough, it didn't recognize my retinal scan or my voice recognition – the computer said they each were only a partial match."

The man is no fool; Spock has to concede him that much.

"The voice recognition software is advanced enough to recognize the differences in inflection and syntax which gave you away to me," Nyota answers calmly. "As to your retinal scan, well. Leonard?"

"That failed to match because of the almost wholescale regeneration of cellular and nerve tissue. Your sight was irradiated so badly we basically had to start almost from scratch there. We'll have to reprogram your retinal scan once your clearance is reinstated because it's going to differ slightly from before. Fingerprints don't change, but your visual cortex has."

Kirk's eyebrows lower in a strangely foreign frown. "You lost me there, Bones. Irradiation?"

A sigh. "We've got a lot to cover, so can we do it not standing around this damn coma room? I've seen enough of it over the last month to last me the rest of my life."

"That depends, Doctor, on whether or not your patient is content to remain in our company without the assistance of pharmaceutical or artificial restraints."

"And no matter what universe, you still sound like you swallowed a linguistics tape deck," Kirk murmurs with a smile, trailing behind McCoy as he stalks through the entry and back into their conference room next door.

Nyota meets his eyes and shakes her head, not needing him to speak. That shared feeling is one reason why their partnership has been successful despite the inability to properly bond in a mental capacity, so crucial to most Vulcan relationships.

"Yeah, it's really starting to weird me out too," she says quietly. "I never thought I'd miss that ridiculous, inappropriate jerk he can be sometimes…"

"Could be," he corrects, not unkindly, though perhaps he should not have changed the verb tense as it seems to have distressed her. She says nothing, however, merely sweeps into the room ahead of him and takes up a place across the table from Doctor McCoy, who is taking his obvious frustrations out on the medical computer in front of him.

Their 'patient zero,' as McCoy called him earlier, sits at the head of the table – some things obviously do not change from universe to universe – with his arms folded, watching them with an eerily perceptive gaze.

He does not appreciate the fact that they have left him the only remaining chair – the one immediately to Kirk's right, and by far the one closest to the man.

"I don't bite," Kirk says dryly, eyebrow raised, with what can only be categorized as fondness twitching at his lips.

The gesture is foreign, on that face, and it sends a shiver of _wrongwrongwrong_ down his spine that has nothing to do with the chilled atmosphere of the Medical wing.

"You will forgive my lack of enthusiasm regarding the situation, _sir_ ," he retorts, with more than a hint of ice seeping into the tone. Kirk flinches, drawing back in surprise, as he sits reluctantly at the table, ignoring the incredulous glare from Doctor McCoy.

"Okay, other than that unintentional mind-meld, you want to fill me in on why you're treating me like I sold Federation secrets to the Klingons or something? I don't even know where I am, for pity's sake. The last thing I remember is being sucked out into space after a hull breach on the _Enterprise-B_ 's maiden voyage – in _2293_ , for your information."

All three of them look up sharply at that, because while they had assumed the man was James Kirk from another universe, they had not anticipated him being brought backward in time, much less so far backward. It was of little wonder he looked somewhat spooked upon first awakening and seeing such a young crew around him; the last he would have seen of his own crew would have been nearly forty years in their future.

"And you are definitely not my crew, even in 2259. So I've traveled across space _and_ time, and that's no small accomplishment. Not to mention the fact that I haven't the faintest idea why anyone would want to pull off a trick like that, so I expect some answers, and I expect them now. Mr. Spock?"

The title catches him slightly off-guard, but the command edge in the tone is at least one very small characteristic which brings a measure of relief to his mind with its calming familiarity. Despite his unease, he finds himself responding to the directive instinctively.

"Here we go," McCoy mutters indistinctly from across the table, followed by a yelp as Nyota's boot makes contact with his shin.

"Sir, recent events in our universe have been…have had far-reaching consequences for the crew of the _Enterprise_."

"Meaning? You mentioned Khan Noonien Singh, before – are you saying he exists in this universe too?"

"Affirmative."

The look of barely-veiled hatred, quickly masked by professional detachment, which flashes through those familiar and yet so unfamiliar eyes…it is startling, and not in a pleasant way.

"I take it the price for victory was high."

Spock lowers his hands below the table so that the humans are unable to see their slight shaking. "Far too high, sir."

"Meaning what, specifically?"

"You _died_ , Captain," McCoy interjects with all the subtlety of a type two phaser array.

Kirk blinks. "What."

"You performed a manual realignment of the _Enterprise_ 's warp core, but in the process died there in the reactor chamber," Nyota says, with slightly more gentle bluntness.

"I…well, that's a switch." The man shakes his head, running a hand uneasily through his hair. Looking surprised, he then glances upward almost comically, eyes crossing, as if in an effort to ascertain the shortness of the cut, before giving it up as unimportant and returning his attention to the briefing. "Wow."

"Not the sentiments your crew were feeling, Captain." Her dark eyes flash back at the man, and he has the grace to wince. "You're welcome to the official reports, but to condense a long story that neither of these two really want to rehash yet again – Leonard was able to formulate a serum from Khan's superblood which reversed the irradiation process and, well…literally, brought you back to life. Restored all your life functions, regenerated damaged cells, the works. After twelve hours of being dead in cryo-storage, you regained life function and have been in a coma for thirty-nine days. Until this afternoon."

Kirk stares at them each in turn. "You're joking."

"It was not a joke, believe me." McCoy's sigh is followed by a firm pinch at the bridge of his nose. "The problem is, apparently when we brought back James T. Kirk, I guess we brought back _you_ – not _our_ Jim."

"Brought me back from where?!"

"That, unfortunately, we were hoping you could tell us." Spock is not encouraged by the almost desperate look which turns to lock gazes with him at the words. "Because if you cannot, we stand little hope of rectifying the situation in any way."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) shi'koh-nar - from the prefix shi-, meaning place of; and koh-nar (also spelled k'oh-nar), meaning emotional vulnerability, or the state of being completely exposed


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: As is probably evident to TOS fans by now, I am pulling from some elements of The Search for Spock, as STID parallels TWOK, though this story won't just be a ripoff of that. So any elements you recognize are inspired by TSFS; anything directly quoted will be footnoted.

**Chapter Four**

Three hours later, they are no nearer a solution than they had been when not-Jim woke up, and have only succeeded in proving quite clearly why Leonard and Spock (why all of them, really) legitimately do need their Captain. Cliché as it sounds, Jim is the glue that holds them all together; the tangled, twisted, frayed but never broken thread that winds their lives so intricately, so strangely, so wonderfully around each other that they will never fully extricate themselves, no matter how much they may try, no matter how much they may wish to at times. She can't explain it any more than Spock can – and she knows he's tried – but the fact remains. If their lives are a solar system, Jim Kirk is their sun, and the rest of them planetoids being held in orbit by little more than charm and a prayer.

And when a sun goes supernova, it nukes everything in its path.

"I will throw you out of this room, Spock, I swear to God! Do _not_ push me!"

Case in point, the meltdown currently in progress.

"Ahem…perhaps you should catch a nap, Bones."

"Shut _up_ , dammit! I am not talkin' to you!"

"Yeah, okay. At ease, Doctor. Seriously, though, you look like you haven't slept in weeks."

"Well, gosh, Jim, I had no idea! I wonder why that might be?"

"Doctor, your sarcasm is not benefitting the situation in any way. You would be better served to –"

"You know what, you open your mouth one more time to tell me to stop bein' overly emotional and I will shove this tricorder so far –"

They are, thankfully, interrupted by the warning chirp of the vid-screen, indicating a communique is coming through – marked urgent, according to the orange flashing light.

Since the other occupants of the room appear to be intent on a hair-pulling catfight to rival her Academy roommates, she sighs and reaches over herself to flip the appropriate switch.

A familiar curly head bobs into view, looking slightly frantic. "Lieutenant Uhura! You are with Meester Spock, yes?"

"Yes," she answers, noting with amusement that the kid's uniform tunic is apparently totally in absentia, leaving him in what she can only assume is his leisure clothing, a colorful conglomeration of randomness that indicates haste rather than lack of taste. "What is it, Pavel?"

"Wellllllll…" Their young navigator glances nervously over one shoulder. "There is, how you say it – good news and bad news?"

"And that's _old_ news," she replies dryly. "Am I supposed to guess, or is this a report?"

"Scoot, Pavel," a voice commands from out of sight, and a moment later Hikaru's worried features fill the screen. The entire lack of amusement in his face is enough to make her straighten, all levity fleeing on the instant. "Nyota, where's McCoy?"

"Right here," she replies instantly, twisting the screen so he can see the argument going on at the other end of the table. "What's happened?"

"We have a leak somewhere, that's what happened." He nods to punctuate the point, matching her glare with his own, fiercely protective. "I dunno where, I'm guessing somewhere in Medical, but at this point the source doesn’t matter. If we're going to get out of here we have to go _now_. Barrett's on her way across campus and there's practically steam pouring out her ears."

Her fluent Klingon invective is enough to stop the argument meters away, drawing all three command officers' attentions to her momentarily.

"We need to move," she orders, swiveling the monitor toward them and moving to the door to check the hall.

Kirk's puzzled question is immediately drowned by McCoy's swearing, as he snatches up their data-padds and hits the master reset button on the primary medical computer. It won't totally erase their presence here, but it will at least delete any medical stats entered in the last three hours and wipe the security footage from this room.

"Mr. Sulu, a more detailed report, if you please."

"Yes, sir. We really don't know, Commander, other than the rumor mill is in full swing."

"The whole campus knows the captain is awake, sir, and a press mob is outside the front doors of the Medical wing – you will not wish to leave by that way," Chekov interjects from the side, before he disappears from view again. "Switching to your communicator now, sir, audio only."

"We are never going to get off this planet," McCoy hisses, following her into the corridor.

"Not an option, Doctor. Mr. Chekov, find me an evacuation route in this building which is under construction or otherwise isolated from Starfleet personnel."

_"Aye, sir."_

"Spock, even if we can get out of the building, we are never going to get off the planet without being caught," she murmurs, yanking Kirk into a cross-corridor when the man stumbles slightly. No one comes back from weeks in a coma without losing muscle mass and physical strength, and they'll be lucky if he doesn't pass out before they make it outside. They need a plan, and they need it fast.

Spock's eyes have that slightly wild look in them that means he's two steps short of frantic and only one short of doing something really stupid, and that only increases when suddenly there's a loud clank in the walls around them and the lights begin flashing red, indicating the Medical wing has instituted a lockdown. The thud of emergency bulkheads echoes faintly in the distance, an increasing death-knell for their careers.

"I'm guessing that's not good," Kirk mutters, glancing around.

Spock's lips are tight with tension. "Mr. Chekov, I require an escape route…"

_"Trying, sir!"_

From another channel, an alert chirps. _"Scott to Mr. Spock. Sir, can ye hear me?"_

At least they haven't blocked the comms yet, though that's probably a matter of time. Spock cuts off Chekov's muttering mid-sentence and switches channels. "Proceed, Mr. Scott."

_"Sir, can ye get to the emergency transport pad on the roof?"_

She meets McCoy's raised eyebrow with one of her own. They have no landing coordinates, even if they could override the security protocols. They can't just beam off the roof into a local building; the emergency transport pads are locked onto the airwaves above the city only, to keep those channels clear for medical emergencies coming in. A good hacker could get around those protocols but even Spock won't have enough time to disengage those firewalls before they're discovered.

Spock immediately herds them toward one of the stairwells, disabling the security lock on it with his beta clearance – the Admiralty hasn't had the sense to revoke that yet, obviously – and they are halfway up the next level before he asks their Chief Engineer to continue. Obviously, he trusts Scott's judgment more than he does their own current lack of plan, and she's not about to argue. Kirk stumbles once on a step and doesn't bother to give her more than an annoyed look as she pulls him back on course and shoves him ahead of her.

_"Well, sir, y'see, it's like this. Ehm. That is, ye did ask me t'find some transport off the planet, if ye will recall."_

"My memory is not impaired, Engineer. Report."

_"Well, sir. I was able to find one vessel that is space-worthy, sir. That could get us to New Vulcan right enough."_

"No shuttle I know of can blast past a planetwide blockade, especially now that they're all looking for us," McCoy fairly yells between pants as he races up another flight, followed closely by a staggering but silent Jim Kirk. "They'll have transporter shields up, too, so it's not like we can beam aboard a transport ship. Why the hell are we doing this, again?"

 _"Well, y'see, sir, that's just it."_ A vague cough from the instrument, and Spock glances down at it incredulously. _"'Tis a bit bigger than a shuttle, sir. But she'll do right enough."_

She giggles silently as Spock's face contorts in an effort to plow through Scotty's well-intentioned prevaricating. Any moment now…

"Oh for the love of – Spock, he's suggesting stealing the _Enterprise_ ," Jim finally snaps, obviously nearing the end of his physical and mental endurance.

McCoy chokes on air as they reach the sixteenth floor, and she gives the man a good-natured push to keep him moving; the klaxons have begun to wail below them, meaning their escape has been discovered. "Good God, man – as if we weren't in enough trouble already!" he gasps.

 _"Well, sir, if ye want t'make it past the_ Excelsior _then our lady is the only ship fast enough and having the firepower to disarm that shiny new bucket o' bolts. She may be clunky but those type four phaser arrays are nothin' to sneeze at."_

"How do you propose stealing an entire starship, Scotty?"

_"Easy, Doctor. Ah'm already aboard her, and Mr. Chekov and Lieutenant Sulu smuggled up with me. By the time ye make the roof she'll be warmed up enough for impulse power at least. Between the seven of us and the autopilot, we can steer her right enough, I'll wager, given the condition she's in."_

"We will still be unable to transport in without sufficient stabilization aboard ship, Mr. Scott. Those systems were taken offline during the warp core replacement."

_"And just what exactly d'ye think I've been doing the last three hours, sir, havin' a wee nap planetside?"_

She huffs a laugh, not trusting breath at this point to anything else – they've passed floor twenty-two now, and only Starfleet training and sheer stubbornness is keeping her on her feet. She has no idea how Kirk hasn't passed out yet from the physical exertion, except perhaps the fact that he's even more stubborn.

But a few moments later, they burst onto the roof of the Medical wing amid a chorus of heavy breathing and a blast of chilled evening air from the Bay – but thankfully free so far of any hovering Security vehicles.

 _"Go, go, go!"_ She can hear Chekov's shrill yell coming from Spock's communicator as they dart across the roof toward the emergency transport pad, and it's a matter of moments for McCoy to shove Kirk into position on one and take his place on the adjoining one, holding the man half-upright with one hand as he bends almost double trying to catch his breath. Spock scrambles up in front of them, glancing around for pursuit and obviously twitching for a non-existent phaser. She can hear him still snapping orders at Scott through the communicator, while she makes a quick dive for the controls; she is the only one who has the landing coordinates for the _Enterprise_ 's transporter memorized, as communications chief. If she can get them programmed with a stabilizer, she can time-delay the transport and hop on a pad herself before dematerialization begins.

And then, because their lives are just one great whopping embodiment of Murphy's Law, the roof is suddenly bathed in glaring red and blue light from the powerful searchlights of not one but _three_ Starfleet Security vehicles.

Fantastic.

Spock stops mid-sentence, looks at her with what is unmistakably Vulcan panic – not because of the sirens wailing overhead, but because he realizes what she's about to do almost before she does.

And, well. He never has been able to stop her from doing anything. He should know better than to try.

"I'll see you on New Vulcan. _Sahrafel svi-t'shal_ ," she says, and offers him an apologetic smile before slamming a hand down on the transport initiator. (1)

She's not sure which is more satisfying, the last dissipation of photons as they dematerialize safely, or the look on Barrett's face when she finds out the transport destination has been deleted and the console fried beyond repair by the time Security grapples down from their precious hovercrafts.

* * *

They materialize on the _Enterprise_ 's transporter pad with surprising ease, given the level of destruction which had reigned aboard the last time Spock left. Obviously, Mr. Scott has done his work well; essential systems must be back up, at least within functional parameters, else he would be feeling the residual effects of a low-powered transport system.

Granted, their relatively uneventful arrival does nothing to prevent Doctor McCoy from turning a peculiar shade of gray and nearly losing the contents of his stomach off the side of the transporter pad, only averted through a valiant effort; but this is secondary to the nausea which he himself must firmly put aside for now, at the knowledge of Nyota's sacrifice for their mission – one which must not be cast aside due to personal connection or so human an emotion as regret.

Matters are complicated considerably when their pseudo-captain Kirk mumbles something indistinctive and then proceeds to lose consciousness, nearly taking McCoy down with him in his descent to the floor.

Spock is beginning to understand firsthand the human affliction known as a _headache_.

"Oh, come on!" McCoy scrambles to retrieve his medical tricorder, which has fallen off the transporter pad in the chaos. "Of all the – yeah, you're fine, Jim. Guess I can't really blame you, kid, that was a hell of a climb." The doctor staggers to his feet, glaring wearily at the unconscious figure on the floor. "Just leave 'im there for a while, he won't hurt anything," he retorts tartly in response to Spock's raised eyebrow. "I ain't gonna carry him all the way to Sickbay, and don't you have to be on the Bridge?"

"I do, Doctor, and so do you. I require an officer at the Communications station." They move toward the transporter room doors, and while he hesitates at leaving Kirk here unsupervised, if McCoy says he is merely unconscious, likely from exertion after so long spent comatose until just this afternoon, then they must attend to duty first.

"Speaking of, what in the name of common sense was she thinking!"

"She was buying us time, Doctor, I believe is the expression. Very valuable time." He grasps the directional handle and gives the command for the bridge, only to find the computer unresponsive. McCoy eyes it warily, and pokes the override button only to be shocked with a mild electrical charge.

Spock resists the urge to sigh. "Computer, disengage auto-pilot for all essential ship functions, beta clearance Spock, zero alpha beta zero one zero three."

_"Auto-pilot disengaged. All essential systems now under manual control."_

"Bridge." The lift begins its ascent, and he turns back to his companion. "Lieutenant Uhura will have enough time to delete our destination coordinates from the emergency transport logs, as well as a few moments to mask our electronic signatures from the Starfleet network, before being apprehended by Command. That will, perhaps, afford us just enough time to effect an escape, Doctor."

"Let's hope so," the man mutters as the doors open on a deserted Bridge, eerily lit with only emergency lighting. "And let's hope they won't be too hard on her."

 _Indeed_ , he too hopes but does not speak aloud. Instead, he takes the central seat with only a minute pause, as a flash of painful memory blindsides him with the remembrance of the horrible dread which had flooded him the last time he sat in this borrowed chair.

Shaking the memory away, he nods to Lieutenant Sulu, who has swiveled hastily around to greet him. The lieutenant's voice is calm, though he can see tension around the young pilot's eyes. He is too young to be throwing his career away like this, though he well knows the futility of attempting to talk Jim Kirk's loyal crew out of such a thing.

"Report, Mr. Sulu."

"I saw you've disengaged the auto-pilot lock, sir. That'll make Mr. Scott very happy, because it was causing all kinds of problems in Engineering. He's been trying to wake her up without alerting anyone in drydock, sir, not an easy thing to do."

"And?"

"We should be able to make it out into open space without being challenged, he's faked some orders from Central to test the new dilithium alignment in some open space maneuvers. Problem is, once the alert from the planet gets out that we've all gone missing, only an idiot isn't going to put two and two together. We'll probably have minutes, at most, from the time we leave drydock to the time we need to get past that blockade and away from the planet."

"Preferably without blasting a hole in people who are on the same side on a normal day," McCoy mutters, taking a seat at the Communications station and flipping the master power switch. The board lights up with a chirp and colorful flash of light, blinking into life. "Okay, I'm on. How am I supposed to – ah. Right, finding Starfleet Priority One channel, gimme a minute…"

Spock turns back toward the navigation console, and while he can see that Sulu is confused about McCoy's presence at Lieutenant Uhura's station the man is too good an officer to waste their precious seconds in questioning.

"What is the status of our systems, Mr. Sulu?"

"Warp drive is supposedly functional, sir, though we of course have had no way to test the new alignment. Impulse power is functional and has been tested. Essential systems within operational parameters. We have no functional replicating systems, however. We'll need to ration the food and water we brought aboard, as they weren't considered essential systems and weren't on the priority list for repairs the last few weeks."

"Understood. Weaponry?"

"Two phaser banks at eighty percent power, sir. Other than that, nothing."

"You're not really going to blast right through friendlies, are you, Spock?" McCoy demands, looking horrified.

Spock glances at the viewscreen, which shows nothing more than a distant set of doors leading to open space. "I will do what I must, Doctor," he replies, quietly.

A chirp startles the physician, and it takes him a moment to locate the blinking light and press the appropriate switch. "Bridge here."

_"An' what exactly are ye doin' up there, Doctor?"_

"Long story, Scotty, and we don't have time. Look –"

"Mr. Scott, I require a status report. Our escape has no doubt already been broadcasted across the city and it will only be minutes before the news will reach the outer airwaves. We must leave now."

_"Aye, sir, starting engines. Our security codes for these bogus maneuvers should get us through the doors, they're on automatic proximity hydraulics right now – but once we're free ye're gonna have to do some fancy flyin', Mr. Sulu, and no mistake about that."_

"Do you still require Mr. Chekov's presence in Engineering?"

_"Aye, sir, there's no way I can run this many systems on manual without a second set o' hands. Sorry, sir."_

"Apologies are unnecessary. Inform the Bridge when we are ready for warp jump."

"Spock, how are we gonna get past the blockade without a navigator! No offense, Sulu."

"None taken, Doctor. I'd need at least five hands to pilot this thing, engage the warp drive, navigate through the blockade, and fire phasers." Sulu's eyes dart toward the turbolift doors as they open, and Spock glances up even as he makes the computations for their shortest flight path toward the blockade.

"I am perfectly capable of inputting coordinates myself, Doctor."

"Let me," the figure in the doorway says quietly. "I was a navigator before I was a captain, at least in my universe, and one of the best. And I have knowledge of maneuvers you probably won’t see for decades. I can plot you a course past that blockade at warp factor one if you jump 0.06 parsecs before you hit it."

Spock stares at the man, despite himself, because this? This he must see to believe.

"That's not possible," Sulu scoffs from behind him, though even he sounds more eager than actually disbelieving. "Sir," the young pilot tacks on as a hasty afterthought.

McCoy's snort as he turns back to his console seems to be what annoys Kirk the most, because the man shoots them all a glare of frustration before moving to the navigation console and falling to work on the unfamiliar controls with a single-minded ferocity that betrays more than anything else just how very _not_ their Captain Kirk he is. Jim is without question one of the most brilliant humans Spock knows – but his methods are not this laser-focused, not this powerfully magnetic. This is the dangerous intensity that can only come with experience.

He resumes his seat, fingers tight on the armrests – nervous? Surely not. But uneasy, perhaps, at the thought of commanding from this chair with that unfamiliarly familiar figure in the navigator's station.

"Mr. Sulu, take us out," he enunciates clearly, calmly.

Kirk glances up, one eyebrow raised as if in challenge, but he ignores this; and a moment later the man returns to his computations, only briefly searching the unfamiliar controls for an unusual key on the keypad before punching it in.

"There you go," he says, standing. He gestures to the console, and Spock moves down to inspect the equation after glancing once more at the viewscreen and the dry dock scenery slowly moving past them. Kirk wanders away after a moment, ambling around the unfamiliar Bridge, and finally ends up at the Communications station.

Spock finally stands after a few moments, shaking his head in wonder. The computations are correct in every respect; according to this, if they time their first warp jump – a hop, really – to begin 0.06 parsecs prior to striking the blockade, this string of tiny warp jumps will allow them to literally bypass the three-level blockade without ever having to actually fight their way through it. And all this, without ever fully dropping from warp. It is an incredibly elegant and unique detour around the laws of physics, and one he would never have been able to formulate himself.

Fascinating.

"All power levels normal, sir," Sulu mutters, almost to himself. "No indications yet of hostility from Starfleet Dock Control."

"That might be because you have them on _mute_ , Bones," Kirk drawls, leaning against a nearby bulkhead, hands in his pockets.

Incredulous, Spock turns just in time to see McCoy frantically slapping switches in an effort to locate the correct one, before he sees the blinking red light on the primary board. Wincing, he shrugs in a gesture Spock has come to understand is correspondent to the all-inclusive human term _whatever,_ and punches that button. They all cringe as the blaring tones of Starfleet's head of security, Commodore Decker, rebound off the ceiling and walls of the Bridge.

 _"Starfleet Command calling Federation starship designation_ NCC-1701 _._ Enterprise _, you are not authorized for outside maneuvers. Repeat, you are not authorized for outside maneuvers. Remain inside the dry-dock area."_

"Mr. Sulu, lay in the course plotted by Mr. Kirk."

Sulu's lips twitch. "Yes, sir."

 _"_ Enterprise _, repeat, you are **not** authorized for outside maneuvers. Return to your designated docking station."_

"Yeah, no." Sulu's fingers flit briefly over the controls before coming to a stop, twitching nervously over the weapons buttons. But as they near the huge docking bay doors, they begin to open with a groan of automated hydraulics. Scott's falsified codes have been worth the price paid – whatever that may be upon their arrest and return, some days hence.

 _"_ Enterprise _, this is a direct order, return to your docking bay!"_

"That wasn't Decker," McCoy mutters, frowning.

"Negative, Doctor, it was Admiral Barrett. Obviously, our specific presence aboard has been surmised."

He sits back in the captain's chair, refusing to look elsewhere than the opening bay doors. Barrett knows him too well, thanks to her long relationship with the late Christopher Pike; he cannot respond to the hail, not only because it is an admission of guilt but also because she will use it to her advantage, ruthlessly. She had always been a far better First Officer than he is now, though Pike had for some reason distanced himself in later years from her, for reasons unknown to him. Barrett had gone on to the operations side of the Admiralty, while Pike had gone by way of the Academy, and the fallout had not been good for the crew.

He wonders, now, what might have been, had things proceeded without Khan's interference. Would their crew have fallen apart as had the first _Enterprise_ crew, with their command team split up and their relationship crumbling?

Not for the first time recently, he realizes he would give anything to be able to turn time back six weeks, to have a second chance at what he so carelessly discarded in favor of absolute truth – a truth which sent them straight into the arms of a madman who cost them the life of their captain.

 _"_ Enterprise _. Commander Spock, I am well aware you are receiving me."_

Three pairs of eyes turn his direction, and he resolutely pushes all other thoughts from his mind, empties it of everything but focused duty.

"Distance to door clearance, Mr. Sulu."

"Nearly there, sir. Ten more seconds should do it."

_"Commander. I have no idea what you think you're trying to pull here, but if you do this? You will have no home in Starfleet. Ever."_

The bay doors are nearly astern now.

_"Spock, listen to me. You really think Chris would have wanted you to do this? What is the point, for God's sake!"_

He carefully releases the chair's armrest, because the leather is threatening to split under his fingertips. That, is an unfair blow, and a wound which has not had time to heal under the pain of far fresher, far more agonizing ones.

"Want me to answer her, Spock?"

"Negative."

"But –"

" _No_ , Doctor." The word is almost thunderous in the quiet of the Bridge, and for a moment only the faint chirps and creaks of the various machines break the brittle silence. Then they hear the proximity warning – an escort shuttle has been sent after them, with a magnetic destabilizer intent on taking out their engines before they can fully fire up.

He depresses the arm communications button. "Mr. Scott, I need warp power now."

_"Ye'll have it in fifteen seconds, sir! We must be completely clear o'the bay doors, nacelles and all, before we can fire up the core, not unless ye want to blast the entire dry-dock to kingdom come!"_

"Well, it's a thought!" Sulu shouts, indicating the shuttle fast approaching. "Course laid in, sir, and phasers locked on. Should I fire on the shuttle?"

"You do and you'll take out our entire inertial dampening system, it's too close to the starboard nacelle," Kirk interjects before anyone else can. The man has had the grace to keep quiet until now, but apparently when the safety of his ship is concerned, he cannot remain silent. "How much further until we clear the doors?"

"We're clear now, sir. Engineering firing up the warp core for a cold-core start in three, two…one."

The ship suddenly vibrates around them, thrumming with a powerful life-force that has been missing until now. Thankfully, there are no alarms or other glaring indications that something has gone terribly wrong with the warp core cold-start, so they may yet make their escape.

"Prepare for warp jump chain, Mr. Sulu, and engage on Mr. Scott's mark."

"Aye, sir."

"You really, _really_ sure we want to do this, Spock? Throw it all away, maybe for nothing?" For the first time, he hears indecision and what sounds almost like sadness, in McCoy's voice.

He cannot truthfully say that the feeling is entirely one-sided.

"I believe it is a little late to be debating that, Doctor."

"Yeah," is the soft reply, as the stars streak away behind them in a kaleidoscopic spiral of blue and gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Vulcan for "Trust me."


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

He had always thought that the afterlife, assuming there was one, would _suck_.

He’s always been of the opinion that you should live life as hard, fast, and intensely as possible, and to hell with what comes after. He knows better than most that you can’t blame anyone but yourself for your own life’s outcome, because he’s living proof that awful things happen and you have to spit in the face of Destiny and move on and build the things you want out of the rubble you have left.

And when you’ve worked that hard for the life you have? Any afterlife, any perfect world, never really holds any kind of allure. He’s always been more scared of living forever, bored and lonely in a perfect Valhalla somewhere, than of actually dying.

And as it turns out? It’s even worse than he always imagined.

For one: trying to remember that he is just a disembodied soul and if he wants to not float around (and up, and down, and freaking _through_ things), he has to imagine himself a corporeal body here. It's amusing for the first few days – weeks? years? – to imagine himself in other people's bodies, and to give himself some, well, _enhancements_ in his own, but it gets old after a while, having to remember to keep himself grounded. Literally. What kind of heaven doesn’t give its members a body in the life-form they’re used to, instead just some interphasic ghostly energy form? What even.

Also, it's boring as hell.

You'd think, for a guy who died saving his ship and (he hopes) Terra from Khan’s insane rampage, he'd at least have been given something to _do_ , but nooooo, apparently the Powers That Suck think that his idea of a paradise is an eighty-year-old nature lover’s retreat. Or something.

He’s stuck in some random cabin in the middle of freaking nowhere, with not a soul in sight for miles around, looking at a chain of mountains that he suspects are green-screened and having to listen to an assortment of Terran birds that apparently don't understand that he's _not_ eighty years old, thank you, and has absolutely no interest in watching them or cataloging them or hunting them so for god's sake shut _up_ , already.

It occurs to him on the third day – week? century? – that he should be glad the rustic cabin at least has running water and facilities (because, just, ew)…until he figures out that he can't taste anything he's eating or drinking, so he's probably not digesting it either, and while he can take a shower he can't really feel the water, so, pointless. It should have been obvious before now, since he can float through freaking _walls_ , but he’s been in denial since he arrived, so sue him.

He vaguely suspects he might already be going a little nuts.

He's no stranger to making his own entertainment, so he can survive well enough for a while here. Exploring the countryside, honing his survival skills, and there's a certain therapeutic satisfaction with blowing up the cabin every couple days with just the items to be found in nature, then watching it reform magically within minutes.

But eventually…

Not even Spock knows, but his worst nightmares aren't of Tarsus IV, or of the Battle of Vulcan, or any of the other horrible things that have happened to them. No, the ones where he wakes up in a cold sweat, sick and shaking…

…those are the ones where he's just left somewhere, hopeless, helpless. All alone. Forever.

So yeah, this? So not happening.

He suspects that somehow, given his less-than-spiritual life, he basically cheated his way into paradise, so it shouldn't be that hard to cheat his way out, now should it?

* * *

The primary difficulty in absconding with a ship of this size is not, as one less informed might suppose, her sheer magnitude of systems and functions needing oversight. Especially now, as the _Enterprise_ is still under construction due to massive damage wrought by the _Vengeance_ during the battle over Terra only weeks before, most of the ship has been sealed off by emergency bulkheads, to avoid further hull breaches and to lessen the power drain on the remainder of the ship's autopilot functions.

Engineering, the primary Bridge, Sickbay, Deck Five (Officers' Quarters), the Observation Deck, and the routes which connect them – these, and the essential ship functions, are those which rank first on a priority scale for repairwork, and it is these which are functional now; the remainder of the ship is inaccessible to them at the present time. While this simplifies the technical expertise needed to run a starship immensely, it in turn makes it nearly impossible to disappear into the depths of the ship as he has been prone to do when needing a refuge from these impossible humans and their impossible propensity to drain his emotional shields, a spaghettification of mental control into the black hole of half-humanity.

He has rarely been so grateful as he was only two hours ago, when Lieutenant Sulu showed a remarkable amount of observational command skills and gentle tact which he certainly did _not_ learn from Jim Kirk, and very delicately suggested that Spock retire for a few hours, leaving the Bridge (and their annoyingly curious passenger) in Sulu's command, while Spock made preparation for their approach to New Vulcan.

It had been less a suggestion, more a gentle push out the door, but Spock is unoffended; this crew has become less a crew and more of a family in recent weeks than any blood relative he has ever known, and such are permitted more familiarity than others might in their same positions. James Tiberius Kirk seems to have that strangely unifying effect on people, human or otherwise; and Spock will do nothing to endanger that atmosphere, while in command of his ship.

He leaves the Bridge, completely ignoring the incredulous looks and questions from their erstwhile captain, and while he spares McCoy a short reply on his personal communicator he ignores all further communications from the Bridge or otherwise for the next two hours, in an effort to calm his thoughts and marshal some semblance of a plan for their next steps upon reaching what he must now consider his home planet.

It is at times like this, that he realizes just how adrift he is, without Nyota's calming influence. And now, he may be forced to see this matter through without both her and Jim – a double loss which he has never yet been forced to confront since they came into his life. The fact that there is a stranger looking out at him from behind the face of one of those two is just doubly painful.

But he has little time to dwell on these things; they will begin their descent from warp in two hours, and will arrive at New Vulcan in less than four. By that time he must have formulated a plan of action to put forth in rectifying the situation at hand – be that attempting to locate and transfer their mistaken James Kirks, or be that simply accepting fate, and leaving this unfortunate impostor to a peaceful life in the hands of at least one being from his own universe, however drastic the age differential might be. Spock will not begrudge neither Kirk nor his elder self that much, at least, no matter how painful the latter outcome might be for the crew of the _Enterprise_.

Add to that, the fact that he must somehow explain this entire matter to the Ambassador, who no doubt is already apprehensive at the news that they are approaching New Vulcan with all speed; the last he would have heard from the _Enterprise_ was that hurried transmission just before their final confrontation with Khan, over a month past. Kirk's death was not news he could trust to any channel, however secure, nor was it knowledge he could deliver in person as the blockade around the planet remained in place, and so the elder Spock yet has no knowledge of that which followed the _Vengeance_ 's final attack on the _Enterprise_ , much less the incredible sequence of events which have now followed. How does one even begin to explain a situation such as this, where logic is entirely absent and what remains is almost too painful to speak of?

He realizes anew, amid a wash of what is undoubtedly human panic, just how very much he does _not_ ever wish to become captain of a starship, if this is what the true burden of command feels like: this inherited responsibility that all – success, failure, and all between – rests upon one's own shoulders.

So deep into his meditation is he, that he only realizes someone has entered the cabin after the door has closed, and the lights brighten automatically upon the person's entrance. Startled, he blinks and looks up, the thin veneer of calm he had managed to retrieve dissipating like smoke in a ventilation shaft.

"Sorry," is the apology offered, sincerely enough. "I didn't mean to startle you; figured you'd lock the door if you intended privacy."

"As no one aboard would have reason to enter this cabin, I saw no need to do so," he replies, standing with an unaccountable stiffness; likely he requires physical rest in addition to meditation, though that has not been easily achieved these last few weeks. Firmly repressing the twinge of annoyance at this impertinent imposter's arrogance, he removes himself further across the cabin to sit in one of the chairs in Nyota's sitting area.

"Fair enough." Kirk follows him, waiting hesitantly until Spock gestures to the other chair with a silent sigh.

"How did you locate me?" He is genuinely curious. Kirk has no access to the computer at the moment, so he could not have made the inquiry of the location systems unless someone accessed them for him.

A slight smile. "I figured you were hiding from me. And given that 80% of the ship's blocked off, you needed privacy but familiarity. I gambled that Deck Five was still officers' quarters and that there would be names on the doors, and fortunately that is at least one minor detail in which our ships are parallel. _Voila._ "

He raises an eyebrow. "And this chain of reasoning led you _here_?"

"I also happen to know what love looks like, even if it is coming from a Vulcan."

He stares at the man, fingers clenched in the armrests of Nyota's chair. Blue eyes glint unfamiliarly at him in what looks like half amusement, half fondness.

"You forget, at least in my universe I know you better than you know yourself, Spock. I can't begin to understand the differences here, between our universes…but I know what I see. I have no idea how she managed to break through to you here, but I am sincerely happy for you. And if you think you're fooling anyone, well. It would take a much less observant man than I not to see your feelings in your eyes."

This insufferable human. If he were not wearing Jim's face, it would be so easy to simply bodily remove him from the cabin, and with a great deal of human pleasure.

He vaguely realizes his thoughts are not precisely logical at the moment (though they are satisfying) and firmly brings himself back to the present, shutting out all else but the mission at hand.

But Kirk is not to be deterred. The man leans forward, expression suddenly sad, and Spock finds himself frozen, unable to look away from those eyes, looking at him from out of a face he knows – and a mind and soul inside which he does not.

"And I know something horrible had to have happened, for this kid I see in the mirror to be given captaincy of the flagship so young – and for his First Officer's eyes to look like his world's crashed and burned around him, when he thinks no one's looking."

Thank the deities of every religion known to the Federation that his Jim is not so observant.

"Hmh. You are aware that walking away from an emotional conversation isn't any more logical than admitting to it, right?"

He calmly resists the urge to throw Nyota's favorite earthen tea-mug at the man's insufferable head, and merely replaces it in the sanitizing cubicle; she cannot stand for visitors to not clean up after themselves.

"…Right. Well, I suppose I can just guess what's happened here, if you prefer."

"I would _prefer_ you remove yourself to another location."

"Ah, he speaks!"

He turns on his heel, intent on removing the human before he loses what shreds of control he has remaining, only to find that the man has invaded his personal space in a manner not even his Jim has ever dreamed of doing. So shocking is the proximity that he actually stumbles backward a step, before catching himself and drawing up in a stance of military attention.

"Jumpy, aren't you?"

"If desiring an appropriate distance between two officers can be classified as that, then affirmative."

"Spock…"

"I do not wish to continue this conversation. Sir."

"You know, I might believe that – if you'd actually _looked me in the eye_ even _once_ since I woke up this afternoon."

Caught, then. He cannot in truth deny this, and they both know it.

He turns away, knowing that this man can see far too much – how, he does not know, and perhaps he does not want to know. But he is far too vulnerable here, in front of this strangely compelling and frustrating version of Jim, far too exposed and helpless to counter that which he does not fully understand.

"I'm sorry."

The words ring softly in the quiet of the cabin, a slightly harsher accompaniment to the soothing hum of the engines below them. Somewhat mystified, he turns, and raises an eyebrow in unspoken question.

A shrug. "I can't imagine how strange this must be for you, Spock. And I'm not making it any easier, am I?"

He relaxes slightly, meeting the truce halfway. "In your defense, sir, there is little you could do to, as you say, make things easier."

Kirk takes a hesitant step closer. "I can listen."

"That would necessitate my wishing to converse."

"I wasn't referring to verbal communication."

He stares at the man despite himself, because the implications are astounding. Never in the history of his race has a human other than his own mother even been able to survive a mind-fusion with a Vulcan, much less been able to or eager to initiate one. To do so voluntarily, more than once…it is simply unheard-of. And vaguely sacrilegious, though that should not be a surprise coming from this particular human.

"You forget I've seen into your mind, however briefly, Spock, and felt what you feel. It might do you some good, and it won't hurt to fill me in on the history of this universe, will it? In fact, it's quite…logical."

"Your opinion is duly noted." Panic has threaded the words with ice, though that does not seem to deter this man.

The comm-unit on his desk whistles briefly, and he is grateful for the reprieve. "Spock here."

_"Commander, we are beginning our approach to New Vulcan."_

"On my way. You are welcome to spend the remainder of the voyage on the Bridge or in Sickbay, but not in Lieutenant Uhura's cabin," he continues, pointedly gesturing toward the door.

"Of course. But my offer still stands, Spock."

"Your offer is a well-meant but uninformed gesture which would be detrimental to this mission."

"Just as you like," is the calm reply, though Kirk's eyes follow him sharply, seeing far too much. "But you can't tell me you aren't…fascinated, by the idea."

His hands clench at his sides. "You have no true knowledge of what you are asking."

"So show me. Or are you afraid of what I'll see?"

He refrains from a bitter smile. This human, this smiling, light-hearted human, with his charming ways and words – he has no idea, how very different this universe is from the one he has left. Their world is a dark place, made strong through pain and suffering rather than stability and charity – the dark side of the moon, so to speak, instead of the shining beacon their parent universe supposedly was meant to be, a heartless and constant reminder of What Might Have Been.

He picks up his data-padd and exits Nyota's cabin, followed closely by a silent human shadow.

 _No, Captain. I am afraid of what_ I _will see._


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"Y'know, I'm beginning to wish we'd just left you _dead_." The drawl is only half in jest, delivered over top of a cup containing what is supposed to be coffee, and which Spock suspects is likely that of the Irish variety, given the fact that the replicators are not working and it came "homemade" from Sickbay.

He briefly considers the consequences of removing the drink from the doctor's grasp, and promptly discards them as not worth the ensuing dramatics. No one, as the humans say, has time for that.

"Doctor!"

" _Chyort_ , that is not funny, sir!"

"Oh, come on. It's a little funny," Kirk ventures, eyes dancing in amusement. Unoffended, he glances around the table, grinning good-naturedly at the horrified faces of their youngest crewmen.

McCoy toasts the man with his mug and drains it, then drops it on the table with a sigh, settling down to business with a sharpness that belies his earlier levity. Obviously, that had been done to lighten the tension, a skill which Spock has himself never quite mastered.

"So, you appear to be in decent health, all scans normal, but we got no idea how long that's gonna last, if it's gonna last, and what's gonna happen in the meantime; so if you start feeling weird you tell me, don't try and be a hero."

"Got it."

"And I'm hoping that superblood will make you less likely to burn the skin off your nose in thirty seconds on New Vulcan like the last time, but just in case – anti-radiation hypos, your name on 'em. And that goes for you too, Spock, you remember last time."

He does, and does not wish to remember. It had been most unpleasant, realizing that the radiation from this new world differed enough from that of Vulcan, to react so against his half-human coloration.

"Understood. You will accompany us to the planet below, Doctor, to prevent any possible relapses during the formulation our next plan of action."

"Joy." A sour look, his direction. "My idea of a vacation, sittin' around in upwards of forty-degree heat waiting for two of _you_ to make up your minds about two of _him_."

Spock sighs silently, as he sees the dumbfounded expression which crosses Kirk's face; obviously, the man has not utilized his time aboard to acquaint himself with the recent history of their universe, as he had hoped.

"Wait, what? Spock, what is he talking about?"

"Oh, for the love of – did you not read _anything_ I told you to?" McCoy demands.

"I read about what happened with Khan, and then about the destruction of Vulcan, because I couldn't figure out why you were all calling it New Vulcan and why we were travelling in the opposite direction of its star system – but that's about it. Someone care to enlighten me?"

"Oh boy," Chekov mutters under his breath, receiving a warning elbow from Sulu in return.

Spock refrains from a human expression of frustration, merely leans back in his chair with an air of resignation. "Your research into the Battle of Vulcan obviously was incomplete, sir."

"Obviously," Kirk replies dryly. "That might be because I currently have only delta-level clearance, thanks to an overly-suspicious First Officer of a certain starship I could mention. But do go on, Mr. Spock."

Spock ignores the snickering coming from the two young officers across the table, and turns a pointed glare their direction. Gratified when they both turn a satisfying shade of scarlet, he continues. "The events precipitated by Nero's vengeance-fueled attack on Vulcan and Terra were first triggered by an occurrence not unlike that which stranded you here – a highly improbable chance event. In this case, one which pulled into our universe a being from your own as well as the Romulan known as Nero, by the same anomaly; the two respective vessels disappearing only seconds apart in your world, but reappearing twenty-five years apart in ours."

Kirk blinks, obviously assimilating this. "You're saying…wait, you're saying someone else got stranded here, too? From my universe?"

"That is in essence correct."

"But from when? I don't remember that ever happening, other than that strange mirror universe during our original five-year mission. Surely if that happened to a member of Starfleet, I would recall hearing about it?"

"It happened considerably after your presumed death in 2293; therefore, you would have no knowledge of the event."

"When, then?"

"Your year 2387," he answers, and hears his voice halt despite himself as the innate knowledge of just how long that period of time is, truly sinks in.

 _Ninety-four years._ Nearly a century, facing the same kind of grief which has shadowed him for the last forty days.

Time heals all wounds, yes; but he has seen how this one still haunts his elder self, all these decades later. It is not a fate he wishes to endure.

This mission, impossible as it seems, must not fail.

Kirk is no fool, that much has been made obvious already, and it is evident he quickly grasps the fact that no human can live that long and still be in excellent health today even with the aid of modern medicine. His eyes widen almost comically, and he inhales with a sharp sound of disbelief, hands clenching on the table.

"That's a very big secret to be hiding away, Commander," he finally says, and Spock has rarely heard such danger in a human's tone – never from _this_ human's voice, usually so warm.

"It is a very _classified_ secret, sir," he retorts, with some heat.

"All right, enough, you two. God, it's like babysittin' a couple toddlers, only without the cuteness." McCoy shakes his head, glaring at the room in general with the air of a man thoroughly disgusted with life. "Yes, there's two of them, Jim. Yes, one of 'em's older than the _Enterprise_ , and no, he has no idea that you're stuck in our Jim's body. That about cover it?"

Sulu's undignified snicker is covered by his data-padd, where he is correlating reports to send to Commander Scott, still buried in Engineering. The man is single-handedly making sure they arrive at New Vulcan in one piece, and Spock did not dare to summon him to this briefing, away from his precious engines.

"Doctor, you are hardly helping the situation."

"And you are?" The physician rolls his eyes ceiling-ward. "Y'all are gonna be at each other's throats the minute we beam down anyway, might as well get used to refereeing now."

Kirk's expression has taken on a somewhat melancholy, somewhat rueful smile. "I suppose it would be foolish to ask the odds of successfully finding a way to fix this, if he's still stuck here after all these months?" he asks in a much more subdued tone.

"Not necessarily; it is our…hope, that he will remember the circumstances behind your death, in your universe, and that might give us some clue as to how we might reverse this process, retrieving our own captain along the way."

"Without losin' you while we're at it," McCoy adds, with a warning glare in his direction.

A slight smile lifts the corner of the captain's lips. "Thanks for that, at least?"

"No problem, sir," Sulu interjects with a grin. He obviously has taken a liking to this version of their captain, and Spock is not entirely sure that is a good thing. "We just got you back, sir, or at least part of you; we're not letting you go that easy."

" _Da_ , Keptin – part is better than nothing! We are very glad!"

Kirk looks about three seconds from dying with laughter at the earnest expression on their navigator's young face, but he refrains with a gallant effort and nods solemnly in thanks.

Sulu glances up from his data-padd, where he's been remotely monitoring their course. "Completing our approach, sir. We should be dropping from warp in five minutes."

"Then if there is nothing else, gentlemen? Mr. Sulu, under the direction of Lieutenant-Commander Scott you will maintain command of the Bridge while Doctor McCoy and I are on the planet. Should you receive communications from Starfleet Command, do not respond to them; notify me via scrambled relay and await my instructions."

"Aye, sir. And if they send a ship after us?"

"Highly unlikely, as they have much higher priorities in the wake of Khan's attack on Terra, but if they do, then leave us on the planet and use your and Mr. Scott's best judgments as to your destination. We will claim Vulcan sanctuary, and as founding Federation members New Vulcan cannot be required to give up or extradite prisoners to Starfleet without violating Vulcan sanctuary law. It will suffice as a temporary measure until others may be taken."

"Yes, sir. Good luck, sir."

"We're gonna need it," McCoy mutters unnecessarily, as he leads the way out of the briefing room toward Transporter Room One.

Privately, Spock agrees.

* * *

If he had been wishing before that this insufferable human would cease talking, using Jim's voice to vocalize words and thoughts that are very much _not_ Jim, then now he is wishing just the opposite; for the strange, subdued silence surrounding them now is much more unnerving. It is like light vanishing into a black hole, oxygen being depleted into a vacuum – like all the warmth has suddenly left the world a dwindling shell of what had been full of life and light and all things human.

Perhaps he had been overly hasty, in his desire for the man to realize how harsh their reality has been.

"It's so different," Kirk finally says, softly, after they have beamed down into a small courtyard just outside the primary city, the coordinates given them by the Ambassador as being the site of his secluded home, close to Sarek's more sprawling estate.

"Obviously."

"I just…" A pause, and he wonders at the fact that instead of becoming rapidly flushed in the arid heat, the man is rather pale. "It hadn't really hit me, only reading about it. I can't imagine, Spock. How do you – I mean…"

"How do you, as you say, 'move on' from such an event?"

Shock seems to be his only answer, and the fact lessens his frustrations with the man; he obviously cares, and cares deeply, and that alone betrays the fact that he is more like their Jim than they likely realize.

"You live," he answers quietly, the words floating away on the dry, heated wind. "You live, for those who no longer can, and you do not forget."

Those eyes pin him in place with an unnerving sharpness. "Somehow I doubt that's a piece of Vulcan wisdom."

"It was not."

"Hm." A brief smile, gone almost before it appears. "Maybe this kid isn't as young as he looks."

"I'd be willing to bet y'all have never really been kids," McCoy says from behind them, then shrugs in response to their twin looks of incredulity. "What, you think that second PhD after my name is just for decoration? I'm a damn good psychologist, I'll have you know, and you two are a couple of head cases if I ever saw one."

"Ah, Doctor McCoy. Your uniquely terrorizing bedside manner is as refreshing as always."

The voice comes from behind them, and he has to almost physically restrain the urge to cringe; the sensation of _wrongwrongwrong_ he always receives when first in proximity to his elder self is not something he has become accustomed to, even after several meetings. It likely is the universe's way of warning them to take care in how they come together paradoxically, but that self-preservational knowledge does nothing to make the task any easier.

He hears a sharp inhale from behind him, and realizes that Kirk likely had not made the connection until now, of just how many years had passed in his own universe since his death, until the events which triggered what has now become known as the Battle of Vulcan.

Ninety-four years have been kind to an elderly Vulcan, but they are still that – over nine decades.

They receive a brief reprieve in the form of a bickering greeting between McCoy and his elder self, an exchange which is as bizarre as it is somewhat…endearing, Nyota would have said. For some reason the Ambassador is strangely fascinated with Doctor McCoy, for reasons known only to him, and the attention has over time produced a variety of intriguing results in their irascible Chief Medical Officer, not the least of which is the current entire lack of venom in his expression as he leans against a pillar in the courtyard, gesticulating in animated discussion with his counterpart about something.

"Spock." He turns just in time to see the captain's eyes start to lose focus, and hastily grips the thin elbow, pushing him toward a large boulder a meter away. "I'm fine, just overheated for a moment," he murmurs.

"You are hardly in a position to judge accurately."

Once seated, Kirk runs a hand over his face, staring at the sandy soil in front of him. "I…" he breaks off with a choked sound, hands pressed together in front of his face, elbows on knees. "My God, Spock, I'm not sure I can do this right now."

He raises an eyebrow, for this is the last thing he would have expected to hear, from either of these James Kirks.

"Don't look at me like that," the man murmurs, eyes darting away quickly as they had lifted to his expression.

"I am unaware of alterations in the usage of my visual cortex, sir."

A faint noise, what can only be described as a giggle, drifts between the man's hands. "So you do that here, too, my friend?"

"Sir?"

"Never mind." Kirk exhales slowly, lifts his head. He casts a hesitant glance toward the figures across the small courtyard, who have only just noticed the small scene going on several meters away. "Incoming."

"Jim, for the love of –"

"At ease, Bones. I just got too hot for a minute, that's all. Calm down before you have an aneurism."

The spluttering which ensues is buried under the Ambassador's less demonstrative greeting, delivered in a tone of amusement mixed with what Spock (since they are, after all, his own features) can tell is relief.

"I am pleased to see you undamaged, Jim _. Pi'shal_." (1) Spock nods his head tolerantly at the endearment, ignoring the raised eyebrows from the human standing beside him. "When I received no further transmissions from the _Enterprise_ , I feared the worst had occurred."

"Well, about that – ow!" McCoy glares at Kirk, rubbing his shin gingerly with the toe of his opposite boot. "It's not like he's not gonna figure it out!"

The Ambassador's eyebrow arches quizzically.

"There were…complications," Spock ventures reluctantly.

"Complications." His own eyes look back at him with unmistakable amusement. "I would venture to guess that is a vast understatement, young one."

"Your guess would be more reliable than other people's facts, as always," Kirk remarks, almost to himself. (2)

For a moment his counterpart seems to freeze in place, eyes flicking sharply to the captain's face, before the look is carefully buried away under a mask of fond melancholy.

"Well, if these complications have brought you to my door then they must be monstrous indeed, Spock. Shall we adjourn indoors? The warmest part of the day is hardly conducive to lengthy outdoor conversation."

"That would perhaps be best."

"Dammit. Friggin' Vulcan mosquitoes," McCoy mutters, inapropros of nothing, and smacks angrily at something on his neck.

"An unfortunately native portion of the ecology which we have been forced to adapt to, as the planet cannot survive without them and the multiple other insectoid species native to the deserts here. Your iron-based blood no doubt is an entirely new and fascinating source of sustenance for them."

"The changes have been drastic, then?" Kirk inquires cautiously. "To adapt to, I mean?"

The elderly Vulcan gives him a slightly puzzled look, but answers readily enough as they enter through the low doorway. "No more so than when last we spoke, Jim. Though we have yet to see a truly wet season; if one is to occur, as is being predicted, that will certainly be shocking enough to the younglings who have yet to see a rainfall. But come, it is far cooler below."

Spock is quite comfortable in the heated air of the upper rooms, but he knows the temperature is likely above human comfort levels, and so follows down the steps to the underground common room of the small dwelling. He stands to the side against a wall, turning over in his mind just how he is going to begin this fanciful tale – how does one start such a thing? It defies all logic, and therefore all logical explanation.

Kirk hops down the last stair with a spring in his step, obviously refreshed by the cool air, but his features crease with concern as it takes the Ambassador quite a few moments longer to reach the bottom of the steps. Spock frowns, unseen; perhaps his elder self should not be living alone. If an accident were to befall him, assistance would be far too long in arriving.

That supposition is given even more merit when some loose soil on one of the steps sends the Ambassador slipping off the next-to-last stair with an inhale of surprise. Thankfully, it is no higher from the floor than that, and a smiling Jim is still at the bottom of the rough-hewn steps with a steadying hand and quick reflexes – no actual harm is done.

That is, until his counterpart suddenly drops Kirk's steadying hands as if they are electrically charged. In an uncharacteristic act of entirely human emotion, he actually stumbles backward several paces, eyes wide with what is unmistakably shock.

Interesting, but unsurprising. Even his James Kirk had somehow succeeded in unintentionally destroying his touch-telepathic barriers with very little effort, and these two are obviously far more attuned, either from intent or from experience. It is actually quite fascinating how in a mere moment, Kirk realizes what has happened. The man's expression softens, and he moves forward.

His elder self instinctively moves backward – distance, a protection against the unknown, the inexplicable. Kirk immediately stops, hands raised in surrender.

"Not really how I wanted these explanations to go," he says softly.

"What have you done?" The hoarse whisper is tense with pain, even with fear, and Spock winces, stepping cautiously toward his elder self. He looks into his own eyes, disbelieving and confused, and shakes his head.

"As I said, it…is complicated. And I am not certain there exists, a logical explanation for the events."

"Whoever said that the human race was logical?" Kirk quips, with a lopsided grin. (3)

A choked inhale. "I do not understand. _Po wa-kin'rer, pi'shal_?" (4)

The increasingly loud _whirr_ of a tricorder behind him is followed by a familiar mutter. "Spock, his heart rate's getting way too high, you need to calm him down _now_."

Spock glares at the physician in annoyed silence; how, precisely, is he expected to accomplish that end? In these circumstances? Short of physical sedation, he does not know what will shake the elderly Vulcan from what appears to be a state of suspended disbelief at the entire situation. It had never occurred to him that this particular scenario might occur, and it has taken them by surprise.

"You both really are clueless, aren't you?" Kirk elbows him out of the way with more gentleness than he has previously shown, and before either he or McCoy can do anything he has both hands on his counterpart's shoulders.

" _Spock._ _Look at me_ ," he commands, in that particular tone that makes Spock's skin crawl; because it holds such command authority within its depths, that it speaks strongly of the man Jim might have been – may still be – given the chance to captain a starship. The power the man wields is unmistakable; worlds will bow before it, nations obey his ship's commands, warring factions cease their fire, all because of this one man.

"I know your brain is telling you one thing and your eyes and ears are telling you something else. But I need you front and center, Mister, and I need it now."

Spock can see the disbelief in his own expression mirrored clearly, though the half-realized terror is receding under the reassertion of logic, calmed by the force of this one small human.

"You fall apart on me and this whole thing goes up in smoke, Spock. Don't you dare leave me trapped inside this kid's body with a crew that's barely old enough to drink on Altair VI."

For a moment there is total silence, as the two men blink at each other without moving. Then Kirk's lips curve gently upward in a slow smile, as he obviously sees something in the elderly Vulcan's expression start to change.

"There you are." A quick glance sideways as the beeping of the medical tricorder becomes less rapid, and then back again. There is a short pause. "So. Hello."

Spock stares as a most undignified and most unVulcan snort breaks the quiet, followed shortly by a whispered conversation he is not privy to. While in truth he cannot really begrudge his aging counterpart either that or the freedom of the silent tears which his Jim is trying to wipe away, he at least does not have to stand here and watch the display.

Little surprise, neither of them even notices when he leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Pi'shal – literally, little or young self  
> (2) McCoy says a line something like this to Spock in The Voyage Home, as they prepare to return to Earth from sanctuary on Vulcan. "He [meaning Kirk] means that he feels safer about your guesses than most other people's facts."  
> (3) Also a line, this time taken verbatim from TVH  
> (4) Po wa-kin'rer – vaguely, what kind of cruel joke is this


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

"You're a hard man to find."

The words hang for a moment in the stillness of the evening before a body drops onto the ledge beside him. They are accompanied by a breathless huff that likely has more to do with the dry desert air than true human annoyance. (The fact that he can now discern this, only after so many weeks in such close daily contact with the man, is thought for another day.)

"You are an equally difficult man to avoid, Doctor."

He stares at the fading light of an unfamiliar sunset, a strange mixture of gray-streaked violets and ochres which would never have been seen through the very different weather patterns and less-oxidized content of Vulcan's upper atmosphere. This planet's rotation is more rapid than Vulcan's and therefore its days are shorter here, though they still operate under the Federation Standard, a twenty-four cycle period; so the sunlight is nearly gone even though it is but 1700 Standard hours. Such a difference would indeed be a drastic change, to accustom one's self – for no amount of heat, can compensate for a lack of light to a sentient life-form.

"Is it very different?" McCoy asks quietly, and for once without any sign of insincerity or levity.

"Completely." He glances sideways at the human, vaguely amused at the man's awkward attempt at comfort. "You are aware that this is not my first visit to this planet since our colonization of it, Doctor?"

McCoy blinks, then scowls at him, folds his arms and glares out across the spreading desert-like plain, dotted with the glow of houses still alive and awake in the heat of the evening. "Should've known better than to try and comfort a Vulcan."

"You should indeed, Doctor."

"Hmph. So tell me, if you're so damn _chill_ , why exactly are you pouting out here instead of having a tea party with those two back at the Ambassador's house? Well? Yeah, that's what I thought."

"Your conclusions are based upon an erroneous assumption of my non-existent feelings upon the matter. I merely required solitude for my meditation, as well as for my report with the _Enterprise_."

"A report which probably took all of three minutes, given that they're just sitting up there in orbit waiting for us to call for beam-up. Try again."

"I do not –"

"Oh, never mind. God, you're impossible." The man pulls his knees up onto the ledge, rests one arm across them. He pinches his forehead with his other hand, slowly massaging the skin around his eyes as if trying to rid himself of a headache. "Spock, look – I've been reading everything I can get my hands on, medical and experimental, and I got nothing that might help us fix this. Fix _him_."

"I unfortunately have had the same amount of success, or rather lack thereof, Doctor." Even what Vulcan lore he had managed to recover, obscure texts and the like which had survived the planet's destruction, held no assistance for them. His optimism has steadily dwindled since they departed Terra, and while he has not given any indication of this to the crew, as is expected of a command officer, he had hoped that the doctor was, as the saying goes, _having better luck_.

McCoy's hand drops from his face, revealing the lines of stress around his eyes. "We have to prepare for the fact that we aren't very likely to fix it, Spock." The words are quiet, but they ring with a finality that sounds more chilling than the flatline of a heart monitor – and they might as well be that, for Jim. _Their_ Jim.

Somehow, deep down, he had begun to suspect that same conclusion. Short of a miracle devised by their alternate selves using knowledge he is not privy to, he does not see any solution open to them which will result in their captain being returned to them, in his own body, unharmed and in his right mind.

Jim Kirk, _their_ Jim Kirk, died in the _Enterprise_ 's reactor core chamber forty days ago.

"What'll we do, Spock? If that really is him, all we're gonna get of him, what the hell are we supposed to _do_? What about the crew, or what's left of them, after they court martial us? What have we _done_?"

"I do not have answers you wish to hear, Doctor." He meets the physician's eyes with what he can only hope looks like sympathy; he cannot afford to lose control now, and so he has carefully locked away any and all emotion for the duration of this mission. The confirmation from this man of what he has already begun to suspect cannot shake that; he will not permit it. "But prior to considering such drastic circumstances we must exhaust every faint possibility of success. I have been informed in the past, that even a point-zero-zero-six percent chance of success is acceptable odds. While I differ in that opinion, I have been proven incorrect."

McCoy's small grin is genuine enough. "That you have, Mr. Spock. By the very man in question, I believe."

"Indeed."

"And did the man in question also ever advise you how to get us out of this black hole we're flyin' deeper into every minute?"

"Your metaphor is slightly mixed, Doctor, but the answer to your question is an affirmative."

This…problem, is beyond them all, beyond all logic and reason and sound judgment. He cannot foresee a scenario in which they are successful, cannot cogitate a plan of action which will ensure their success. In the most painful way possible, he has discovered his own personal no-win scenario.

Jim would no doubt laugh hysterically at the irony.

And in that case, there is obviously only one course of action open to them.

"Well, spit it out, Spock! What do we do?"

"By utilizing every resource available to us, including those which have been classified as too hazardous to the time-space continuum and our own timelines, if necessary."

"And for those of us who only speak plain Standard…?"

"We _cheat,_ Doctor."

* * *

It is nearing ship's midnight when they return to his elder counterpart's dwelling. Even he is not so cold as to visit this planet and not so much as detour briefly to at least greet Sarek, especially when in such proximity and when news of the recent Terran events has reached the other Federation members. Besides this, the time and distance from the reunion taking place in the next house is quite welcome.

Sarek naturally does not show either surprise or pleasure at seeing him, though he is cordial, almost welcoming – a shocking departure from the norm – to both his son and to Doctor McCoy, who for reasons known only to him decides to come along. They spend two hours and an evening meal in Sarek's company, and then depart with his blessing, and a surprisingly voluntary offer to assist in whatever capacity his father is capable, should intervention with Starfleet become possible regarding their commissions.

Spock highly doubts intervention will be either possible or helpful, given that his father is no longer an active diplomat due to the duties expected of a senior member of the founding colony, but the offer is appreciated. Learning that Sarek is contemplating a marriage of reproductive necessity to a local Vulcan woman, one of his former ambassadorial aides who also escaped the battle of Vulcan unscathed, is not as appreciated.

But he will not judge; he knows all too well what grief and loneliness can do to a man, and every being must cope as best he can. It has been sufficient time to mourn, and if this is the path Sarek chooses to walk, then Spock will not comment. Aloud, at least.

It does not mean he will be returning here again, however, and Sarek seems to receive that information with more understanding than he had anticipated.

"Well that was a bucket of awkward," McCoy comments unnecessarily as they walk across the intervening desert toward the elder Spock's home.

"Whilst colorfully metaphorical, I do understand that reference, Doctor, and agree." He sighs wearily, unable to keep up a pretense for much longer under this strain. The calm of a clear night sky twinkling with unfamiliar stars and constellations does assist somewhat, and he exhales slowly, noting the increasing chill of a desert night. "But my family's personal business is hardly the matter at hand."

"Fair enough. We heading back to Terra in the morning with Jim and the old you, or staying here to try and figure out what to do next?"

"I…do not know, Doctor. I must first learn what the Ambassador is able to divulge, if anything, regarding Captain Kirk's death in his own universe. If there were extenuating circumstances such as a temporal anomaly or ionic storm which might assist us in recreating an event which could exchange the two men, then we may have a chance. There are also certain Vulcan katric rites which were said to have been performed in ancient history that supposedly could…exchange, or shift, consciousnesses, from one corporeal body to the other. Perhaps in his universe, those rites were not simply myths. But if none of these remote possibilities bear fruit…"

"We gotta decide what to do with him, and that's not a conversation I want to have sober," the human mutters, kicking aimlessly at a rock beside the dusty pathway.

The shrill beeping of a communicator cuts off his response, and he removes it from his belt. "Spock here."

 _"Enterprise, Mr. Spock."_ Lieutenant-Commander Scott's accent has become nearly indecipherable, a certain indication of unusual stress. _"Sir, I think ye'd better beam back up an' listen t'these comms, sir, something awfully weird seems to be goin' on with Starfleet Command!"_

"Mr. Scott, please endeavor to calm yourself and explain from the beginning." McCoy shoots him a worried look, and they quicken their pace toward the lit windows of their destination. "Which communications, precisely, are you referencing?"

_"Well, sir. Laddie, kin ye cut any more of that interference? Sir, aboot an hour ago the whole system just went…dark, I guess ye would say. Everything, kaput, all across every channel in use by Starfleet."_

"That is statistically impossible, Mr. Scott. Have you run diagnostics on all systems?"

_"What kind of engineer d'ye take me for, sir? O'course I did! An' she's runnin' as pretty as the day she launched from Riverside dockyard!"_

"But that isn't possible for every channel to go dark, Spock, is it?" McCoy asks, puzzled.

"It is not, Doctor. Mr. Scott, be more explicit, if you please."

_"I dunno how explicit I kin be, sir. There isna so much as electrical interference comin' across on anything, even Priority One. We are sendin' out signal and it seems to just be disappearin' into thin air – no indication it's being received, and no signal at all coming back at us from anywhere, long-range or short-range, on any Starfleet channel. Up until now, we've been monitoring and receiving the usual, but then they all just…stopped, sir."_

"That's a little concerning, given the difficulties they were already having with the satellites being damaged from Khan's attacks," McCoy mutters.

"It is, Doctor. Please alert the captain and my counterpart of what is occurring, and inform them we may be breaking orbit momentarily." The doctor nods and disappears into the house, a beam of light spilling out and then vanishing as the door shuts behind him. "Mr. Scott, have you checked the emergency channels as well?"

_"Aye, sir."_

"Check Emergency Channel Alpha One-One-Zero-One."

_"…That's a channel, sir?"_

"Not one which is public knowledge, Mr. Scott. It was created shortly after the Battle of Vulcan, and is the highest security emergency channel, known only to I believe eighteen individuals in Starfleet, many of them captains of exploratory starships. It would be used only in the event of a planet-wide emergency involving imminent destruction of the planet itself, warning ships to stay away from Terra for their own protection. It is an experimentally high-frequency long-range beacon, able to be played on a loop via subspace relay for twenty-four hours after the signal is cut before the signal pattern begins to degrade."

_"Christ. Right, finding it now, sir."_

"Access it under my security clearance as acting captain of the _Enterprise_ ; in the event of a planetary emergency that clearance alone should activate any messages without necessitating my voice recognition."

_"Huh, what d'y'know. Aye, sir, the channel is there – get that cleaned up a bit, Mr. Chekov! And there's something on it, sir. Saints preserve us, Mr. Spock…ye'd better get back up here."_

"Understood. Prepare to beam me up on my mark." He turns as the door opens behind him, spilling lamp-light into the evening.

"Well?"

"A planetary emergency has apparently taken place, necessitating the activation of the final emergency broadcast beacon, Doctor."

McCoy's face pales. "What could possibly have happened in eighteen hours?"

"I do not know, Doctor. That is why I am beaming up to the ship to watch the broadcast with Mr. Scott. Our next moves will be taken after I ascertain the facts."

"But what about –"

"Doctor, that channel is only to be activated if Terra is in danger of being completely destroyed, and all hope of salvation is lost. It is a warning beacon, to inform passing starships to remain at a safe distance. Our personal mission must be put aside at the present moment, for the fate of Earth may very possibly rest entirely upon the five of us and the _Enterprise_ , now."

"The seven of us," a voice speaks up from the doorway as Jim Kirk steps out, arms folded. "So beam us up and let's get to work."

* * *

"That's the last message sent out from Terra, timestamped six hours ago." Sulu hits the pause button, freezing the viewscreen on the image of the aging Federation president, his weathered face ringed in the chaos of what looks like Starfleet Command central lit only by emergency power, and that fading fast. "This was less than an hour after their first distress call on the same channel. Whatever it was, they did see it coming, but they didn't have the power to divert it or time to get help."

"Whatever _it_ , is," Scott interjects, shaking his head. "I dinna know of anything which can just obliterate an entire planetary blockade like that in a matter of seconds, Mr. Spock. I dinna care how the _Excelsior_ described it before she went down, there is no weapon in the galaxy that has that kind of firepower!"

"That's the thing, though, sir," Sulu interjects, shaking his head. "If it's a weapon, who the hell has that kind of power, why haven't we heard from them before now, and where were they firing from? A – whatever it was, plasma discharge, maybe? – that powerful, is something unheard of. Is this some renegade faction left over from the shutdown of Section 31, that we just have never heard of?"

"The culprits themselves are far less concerning to me at the moment than the method by which this was achieved, Lieutenant. The laws of science and matter dictate it is impossible to simply vaporize matter by means currently known to us, without leaving debris or residual energy. To then move on and do the same to a planet in a matter of hours is even less credible. Even the so-called 'doomsday machine' which the _Constellation_ encountered last year left a considerable debris field in its wake and its progress through the L-370 system was markedly slower than this. And given the _Excelsior_ described this discharge as an energy ribbon, it would seem to be a rapidly moving weapon."

“I’ve never heard of any weapon that could be categorized as an energy ribbon.” Kirk's attention swings from the report he has been scanning intently, to the confused features of his crew. “Mr. Scott?"

"Never, sir. And I've seen a fair sight o'black market weaponry m'self. Nothing I've ever seen could be categorized like that, regulation or no."

But Spock's gaze has not left their unexpected passengers, and something in his elder self's expression has suddenly arrested his attention, though there is nothing but corresponding confusion in Kirk's.

"You have encountered this before," he interrupts, causing the Bridge to fall silent, startled.

His elderly counterpart sighs. "I have…heard of it," he hedges, glancing sideways at Kirk.

"Well, spill it, Spock. What is it?"

"You honestly do not remember?" the Ambassador inquires curiously.

"Should I?"

"I find it unusual you should not, considering it played a key role in what we presumed was your death in the year 2293."

"Do what now?" McCoy's exclamation voices all their opinions, as he leans forward eagerly. "You didn't think to mention this the minute you heard that transmission? This could be the answer we're looking for!"

"Or it could be the merest coincidence, or simply a parallel event which must be dealt with as we dealt with the appearance of Khan," Spock points out calmly, though the stirring of hope he feels cannot be denied. "However, Ambassador, what information you can give us will only be of assistance, since obviously this – anomaly or entity, whichever it may be – has either disarmed or destroyed Starfleet Command and possibly the entirety of the Terran population."

Perhaps he could have phrased that less drastically, as it appears to have made the human members of the crew slightly ill. They pull themselves together with a valiant effort, however, and contain their apprehension with a control which does their race credit.

"I don't remember a thing after the hull breach," Kirk says, shaking his head. "Though now that I think of it, the ships we were rescuing were supposed to be trying to escape some kind of energy singularity."

"It was indeed, a very specific singularity which had appeared to be traveling through space with no discernable pattern to its path. In its travels it had trapped objects in its grasp, two of which were small vessels which the _Enterprise-B_ was aiding when the singularity shifted its course to partially cross paths with the ship. It then vanished after raking across the portion of the hull containing the deflector controls which you were attempting to recalibrate."

"Cue the hull breach." Kirk's eyes are distant, and he shakes his head. "I don't remember that, honestly. So I suppose it's not survivable, whatever it is."

"A logical supposition. But whatever _it_ is, it defied all efforts to locate and study it after the events which nearly destroyed the _Enterprise-B_."

Blue eyes narrow sharply. " _All efforts_ being yours, my friend?"

"I admit nothing," the elderly Vulcan says primly.

McCoy snorts a laugh. "I'm guessin' the whole hull breach thing is why you were presumed dead, then."

"Apparently. Your guess is as good as mine. So this thing was never seen again, Spock?"

The Ambassador sits wearily at the science station after a questioning look his direction, as if he requires permission; an absurd notion, for surely he of all people fits in that chair far better than Spock himself does the central seat he is carefully _not_ sitting in with that human standing only meters away.

"There were…rumors. I was on Romulus, by the time they began, and so they might possibly have been unsubstantiated."

"You're lying," Kirk says bluntly.

"Jim…" McCoy's warning is cut off by a sharp gesture, a hand slicing commandingly through air.

"We don't have time for Vulcan omission, Doctor. Spock, what are you not telling us?"

A chill runs down Spock's spine as his counterpart's eyes flicker to him in what looks like resignation, and what has to be warning, before he turns back toward the captain's tense figure across the Bridge. "That, I cannot tell you, Jim. Even I cannot so tamper with the timelines of our universes as to tempt fate regarding that which has already happened."

"If it has already occurred in your timeline, there is no logical reason to hide the facts," Spock counters.

"No, young one. But there is, perhaps, sufficient emotional reason. And that is and will be my final answer.”

"Will your hiding these events in any way affect our ability to render assistance to the people of Terra in regards to this entity?"

"Negative. All which you need know, is that the entity did reappear some seventy-eight years later, in an entirely different area of space, that it appeared to be non-threatening and simply traveling on its way as it had before, and that it disappeared again after the events surrounding its reappearance. It appears to be an entity not bound by the dimensions of time or space."

"What about the ships rescued from it in 2293?" Sulu asks. "Did their passengers and crew remember anything from being trapped inside, if it wasn't really inside the bounds of time?"

"They had no idea regarding the amount of time which had passed in the outside world, if that is what you are asking, Lieutenant. Their perception of the time which had passed inside the energy field was considerably different. And yes, they did remember, some of them."

"If it isn't bound by time and space, it's likely not bound by _universal_ dimensions then, either," Kirk muses, frowning. "So it likely could be bleed-over from whatever weakness in the continuum walls allowed my consciousness to slip through into your captain's body instead of his."

"Well, then can't we just…shove the blasted thing back where it belongs, so t'speak? I mean, if we kin find out how it got here in the first place?"

"I daresay the matter is not so simple, Mr. Scott, and that does not alter the fact that we have yet to ascertain what has occurred to silence the Federation. How quickly can we reach Terra at maximum warp capabilities?"

"I kin give ye warp six for three hours, sir, no more than that with the drive in the condition she is. It'll have t'be warp four for the remainder of the trip if ye want to still have weaponry available when we get there. It'll take a good ten hours to get back, no mistake."

"Make it eight, Mr. Scott."

A grin crosses the man's face. "Aye, sir. Ye'll have it, sir."

"Prepare to break orbit within the next ten minutes, gentlemen." As the turbolift door closes behind their Chief Engineer, he nods toward the communications station, and very carefully does not consider where Nyota might have been when this entity attacked the Earth. "Doctor, you will continue to monitor all frequencies during our journey and if we are hailed upon our approach notify me immediately."

"You got it. Sir." The belated addendum causes him to raise an eyebrow, but he does not comment, nor does he address the helmsman and navigator, who are already busily laying in and plotting the most direct course back to Terra. There is no need to direct where orders are already clear, and he is not in the habit of making idle conversation or reassuring fully competent officers.

"Estimated time of arrival on Terra, Mr. Chekov."

"A suggestion, Spock – we don't want to drop straight out of a warp bubble into any type of unknown energy field, and if that 'ribbon' is traveling we have no way of knowing how quickly or if it intends to just hang around the planet for a while. I'm not so sure it isn't sentient, from what little we've heard. I'd rather see us drop out close to the edge of the Sol system and crawl in, even if it takes a little longer, than chance not seeing what hit us."

While the words are couched as a suggestion, the command edge in the tone is clear – it is a warning. A gentle one, but still a warning. _Hurt my ship and you die._

That, at least, is quite familiar, and for the first time he actually recognizes the man in front of him.

For a moment their eyes lock, a silent battle of wills that eventually draws the fascinated attention of the rest of the Bridge crew. But finally, he nods; for in this, they are both agreed – the safety of Jim's crew is paramount.

"Implement Mr. Kirk's strategy, Mr. Chekov."

"Aye, Keptin. _Keptins_. Sirs. _Aie, bez raznitsy_."

Kirk's amused smile fades slightly when they both automatically move toward the command dais. But Spock sees his elder self discreetly hold out a restraining hand before Kirk can move more than a few inches, sharing a pointed look with the man which speaks volumes, and he is well aware of the effort it takes the human to resume his place standing at the back of the Bridge near the library station.

But succeed or fail, it is he who will shoulder the command burden of this mission, and so it is he who takes the chair, he hopes – that strange human emotion, hope! – for the last time.

"Update, Mr. Chekov."

"Estimated time of arrival at the Jupiter checkpoint station in nine hours, six minutes, sir; from there we should be able to do the quick recon, so to speak – see if the blockade is indeed destroyed as said."

"A sound suggestion, Mr. Chekov. Lay in that course and engage warp drive when ready, Mr. Sulu."

"Aye, sir."

A moment later, the sandy sphere of New Vulcan recedes in their viewer, and then disappears in a streak of star-blur as they make an unusually bone-jarring jump to warp.

He raises an eyebrow, and depresses the communications switch in the armrest. "Mr. Scott?"

 _"I know, sir! 'Tis under control! Ye worry about the Bridge an' let me worry about these blasted, temperamental – "_ Something explodes, cutting off the man's voice, though no alerts have yet to flash up on his arm control panel; short of an alert malfunction, nothing is yet at the critical stage. _"Uh. One moment, sir."_

"Mr. Chekov, if the course has been laid in to your satisfaction, I believe you would be of most assistance in Engineering," he says dryly. "Please endeavor to keep us on-course and Mr. Scott out of Sickbay for the remainder of the voyage home."

Sulu's grin is carefully hidden under his re-checking of the piloting controls as his seat-mate scrambles out of his chair and into the turbolift, eyes wide with alarm.

"Doctor, I would suggest you utilize the next six hours as your rest period, as I will require you on the Bridge upon our approach to the Jupiter checkpoint."

McCoy casts a doubtful look around, but has the common sense to know he cannot go for longer than twenty-four hours without a sleep cycle. "You call me if you need me, any of you," he says, poking a bony finger into Spock's shoulder as he passes the command chair. Spock tolerates the gesture as he has far too many these past six weeks – by ignoring it entirely.

"Mr. Sulu, am I to presume you have remained in command of the Bridge for the duration of the time we were planetside?"

"Yes, sir. Not going to deny I could use a break, sir, but I'm good if you need me up here."

He raises an eyebrow. "While commendable, such over-application is unnecessary, Lieutenant. Engage the auto-pilot and report back to the Bridge in six hours."

"With pleasure, sir." The young man's gratitude is evident, as is his weariness. Spock had noted the difference in the two humans' energies when he came on the Bridge; obviously, Sulu had pulled rank and forced Ensign Chekov to at least take a rest period over the hours they were planetside.

The crew now cared for, the burden of command lessens somewhat, and he feels the immediate strain ease slightly. He turns to his elder counterpart, who has watched these exchanges in silence, just the hint of a what looks like a proud smile gracing his aging features.

"If you do not mind the intrusion, Ambassador, I would have a few moments of your time for…personal inquiries."

The dark eyes glint at him in amusement. "I anticipated as much, young one. Shall we adjourn to a more private setting?"

"What about me?" Kirk's plaintive interjection follows them as they move in sync toward the turbolift.

"You have the conn. _Sir_ ," Spock says dryly, and the doors shut behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I suppose this would be the time to reassure everyone that I have no intention of leaving this story with an unhappy ending? It may not be the ending everyone really wants, but it won't be unhappy. Like Uhura, I too would ask you to trust me. 
> 
> Also, while there are and will be obvious similarities just due to chronology and circumstance in these next couple of chapters, I will not be ripping anything else off of The Voyage Home, just FYI. Sorry to the whale lovers.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

Jim had hoped that digging the word BORED in twelve-foot block letter trenches around the cabin with the small hand shovel he’d discovered in the rustic shed out back might draw the attention of whoever was in charge of this sorry excuse for a paradise, but apparently he is as ignored here as he had been as a child at home in Iowa, because no such luck.

At least it burned a week’s worth of time. A month’s worth? Who knows, here. It could have been a hundred years since he arrived, or just a few days; his brain is all screwed to hell right now, a jumbled mess of memories and half-recollections and emotions, and he has the feeling that this constant inability to properly tell time is a purposeful effect of the place.

But he is a little lucky. Lucky he's a disembodied soul, because they definitely aren't concerned with feeding him, entertaining him, exercising him, or anything else any _decent_ zookeeper should be doing. Seriously, even the fabled Almighty knew Adam needed Eve so he didn't go psycho and burn down the Garden of Eden just because he _could_.

If he wasn't dead already he would probably have offed himself by now, no joke, purely out of scientific curiosity to see if there’s some Inception-level madness to this place.

He'd spent the better part of a week – year? decade? – trying to reach the mountain range he can see off in the distance, only to find that at the end of every day he just ended up back at this stupid cabin, no matter what direction he set off in and no matter how carefully he kept track of the sun and his progress during the day. Obviously, the scenery is a fake, or else someone just doesn't want him straying too far from home not-so-sweet home.

So that option off the chessboard, for the last week – century? – he’s amused himself by seeing how many different ways he can destroy the cabin using only the tools and materials he’s found in his little Nature Cage. Hey, he's not a genius for nothing, thanks very much. And he kicked the entire Academy's ass in survival school, even if Admiral Archer flunked him the first trimester because KO'ing a teaching assistant and stealing a hovercopter was apparently against their precious rules.

Tonight – or is it yesterday? – he briefly wonders if a ghost can develop a pyro complex, as he watches the flames leap high into the evening sky, sharp and clear and crackling nicely under the influence of some weird tree sap that apparently works decently as an accelerant. Good to know.

"Burn, baby, burn," he mutters, flopping down on the ground to enjoy the blaze. Seriously, it's so weird, knowing you're sitting on a pointy rock and not being able to feel it digging into you. He chucks the hunk of limestone at a tree in annoyance, scaring a fat squirrel who cusses at him and runs up a branch out of sight.

Great. Even the wildlife doesn’t want anything to do with him in this place. 'Course, that might have something to do with the fact that he's been amusing himself lately with anything that he can, and they're probably afraid they'll end up like the mangy 'possum that decided to wander inside two nights ago and scare a trained-and-traumatized starship captain half out of his mind by trying to bite him on the ear. He can't feel pain, and the possum obviously couldn’t feel anything where his ear should have been, judging from its very confused expression; but being woken out of a deep sleep by the sensation of beady little eyes staring at you from out of the darkness? Still a knee-jerk reaction, even these months – centuries? – after active duty.

He does feel bad for trying to punt it through the open window, though. Poor little guy is fortunate he still doesn’t quite have the hang of making his body solid unless he’s concentrating super hard.

The really sad part? He actually didn't mind the damn rodent visit; it's the most excitement he's had since he's been here.

A piece of roof falls off the blazing cabin and sets fire to a couple pine trees; Jim cranes his neck to make sure there's no trapped animals in them (last thing he needs is the vengeful ghost of an angry rabbit or something coming back to haunt him, although that would be an interesting diversion) and then leans back with a yawn; the powers-that-be will send rain before the entire forest burns down, he's already found that out from experience.

Like he said. _Bored_.

He's almost asleep, because it's all just so freaking _stupid_ , when the air changes again. He's been noticing these patterns, because all he can do is observe now that he's running out of options for entertainment, and every so often there's some weird disturbance somewhere in the distance. It's oddly like his childhood memories of a storm brewing in the Midwest, right before a tornado hits, only without the thunder and hail and any visible signs of the twister coming. The drop in pressure, the deathly stillness, the sense that all hell is about to break loose if the wrong lever is pulled; he knows the indications, his instincts honed from survival under and among the stars.

But nothing ever happens, so he just daydreams about who else could be out there, somewhere, wandering their own horrible lonely paradise and feeling the same way.

At least, nothing ever happens until today.

That had better not be a freaking _bear_ , because seriously? While the diversion is a welcome change, getting eaten in stages while he's not even alive to begin with is just _messed up_.

The crash he heard while his eyes were closed apparently wasn't the wild animal he thought, however, because it suddenly reappears. Almost on top of him, and moving way too quickly to be a predator.

At least one lower on the food chain.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

He blinks as the words crack across the clearing like a gunshot. Shakes his head vigorously, scrubs an eyeball back into focus, and blinks again – because yeah, that really is a person, and not just any person, staring at the still-flaming remains of what had been his cabin. He's either hallucinating, or his Chief Communications Officer just stumbled into his Valley of the Fallen Captains.

"What is this even supposed to mean?!" The near-shriek of frustration sends a smallish gang of birds into mad flight nearby, and he tries not to laugh. He's heard that voice make junior officers fairly wet themselves with terror on away missions where the safety of a crewman is concerned, and he learned very quickly after they launched that this particular officer was a much better ally than enemy.

(Also, if it didn't indicate that something terrible has happened in the outside world, he would be bawling like a four-year-old to see a familiar face at all, much less someone who actually cares he exists. Or _doesn't_ exist anymore, as the case may be.)

"Uh." The nondescript noise is more grunt than word, because after months – centuries? – of not speaking, his voice is way out of practice. He clears his throat and tries again, with not much more success, but the noise has at least gotten her attention. And after all, _noise_ is her specialty.

Ponytail flying, she whirls around, stance obviously self-defensive, and he remembers with rapidly growing hysteria how badass she had always been aboard his beautiful ship that he'll never see again, and this is not the time to be melting down over that, nope, not going there, not at all, how embarrassing would that be anyway?

"'Sup," he croaks with an awkward little wave, and watches her eyes do that weird sparkle thing Spock's do when he's trying not to cry or laugh or kill someone or maybe all three.

"Oh my God. Why am I not surprised you're the pyro behind this."

She collapses more than sits on the grass beside him, and he frowns at the slim hand that hovers nervously over his arm, shaking slightly. She draws back after a second without touching him, and he deflates, disappointed, even if it probably wouldn't have worked anyway. It's been longer than he can remember since he had physical contact with another person. Sometimes he can't even remember what it feels like, to _feel_.

And it terrifies him.

"Captain, what the…how are we…look, I don't understand."

"And that's the first time I've ever seen you not have words for the occasion," he murmurs, grinning. Just talking to someone else, anyone else, would be the most awesome thing in the world – but this? This is freaking amazing.

" _Lkap'uh t'du ru'lut_." (1)

He snorts. "I may not speak seventy-eight languages, Lieutenant, but believe me: after we launched I learned a half-dozen insults in colloquial Vulcan just in case I was getting talked about behind my back. _Duhik-bosh_." (2)

Her lips twitch in amusement. " _Touché_. But look – we know you’re still dead, Jim." Ah, that bluntness, no wonder she gets along so well with Spock. "How in the name of all that's logical are you here?"

"Ah…I might be better able to answer that if I had any idea where _here_ is."

She blinks. "You don't know?"

"I got nothing. Everything went a little dark before I lost track of Spock's voice in the warp core. But once it all faded out, there's just a blank space in my head. And then I woke up here, I dunno how many years ago." The look of shock on her face scares him. "How many…how long has it been?" He's actually really afraid to hear the answer, because what if it's been centuries? It feels like it. And paradise could easily just be giving Uhura an illusion of youth…

"Forty days, give or take a few hours."

What.

"That's _it_?"

"That's more than enough, thank you. _Captain_." And wow, he'd never thought that title could say _Asshole_ so clearly.

He looks down at the grass, knowing there isn't anything to say that will make it better.

"How's Spock?" he asks quietly. "Bones? God, I never said goodbye to him, Nyota."

"They're coping. We all are coping. But…well, look. There were complications."

"It didn't feel very complicated to me," he says dryly. "Pretty sure dead is dead."

"Pretty sure, you continue to break every rule in existence, including that one," she answers wearily.

What. the. Hell.

"Excuse me?" Huh, he does still have a Captain Voice, even after all this time. Her response is instinctive, she probably has no idea she even does it – an officer now to a superior, instead of a friend to a friend. The snap to attention, the unconscious readiness to report, the lack of irritation and only willingness to cut straight to fact. "Considering I'm still stuck here, you'd better have a really good explanation."

"Oh, it's fantastic, Kirk, so get comfortable. You're going to _love_ this."

* * *

"I did tell you the news would not be welcome."

"That is a vast understatement. A state of being which I am beginning to suspect is your default setting where our shared history is concerned."

"Such human irritation, young one." Amusement does nothing to soften the blow of truth, and he tenses at the accusation, too reminiscent of mocking childhood long gone, but not forgotten. Obviously, his discomfort is evident, for he receives an apologetic nod. "Forgive me, Spock. I forget, that you are still endeavoring to navigate these most treacherous of star systems in your own way. My methods of…coping, with the past, are not yours, and I should not expect them to be so."

"I meant no offense."

"And none was taken, _pi'shal_. But you do see why I will not inform your crew of the full events surrounding this Nexus's reappearance in my own timeline, many years after its initial encounter with the _Enterprise-_ B?"

He raises an eyebrow. "You are under a vastly mistaken impression, _Tela'at_ , that your crew is the same as mine." (3)

"Indeed?" A curious eyebrow. "How so?"

Feeling a twinge of entirely human amusement at the idea that he is yet able to surprise this insufferably smug version of himself, he leans over and depresses the communications switch on the nearby console.

"Doctor McCoy, if you intend to eavesdrop on a private conference you would be best served to utilize the skills of a more competent hacker, one who will _not_ trigger every security protocol in the system."

Human spluttering erupts from the console, even as his counterpart's eyebrows slowly rise toward the ceiling.

 _"I **told** you, let me do it!"_ He raises an eyebrow himself, for that is Jim's voice – Kirk's voice.

_"And I told you, you are not touchin' anything on this ship until Spock says you can!"_

"I stand corrected," his counterpart intones solemnly.

"Did you really believe they would tolerate such a deception, when it may affect our ability to locate and retrieve our own captain?" he inquires with as much calmness as he is able to muster, given the photon grenade his counterpart had dropped into the conversation upon their entry to this room.

The elderly Vulcan's eyes sadden. "I did not wish to raise false hopes in your crew, young one. And…they are not easy events to speak of."

He nods, and cuts off the audio feed from the briefing room, engaging a security protocol which will prevent anyone – experienced hacker or not – from accessing the information. "I can understand this. However, I believe that I, at least, am owed a further explanation."

"That is a fair request. Simply put…as I stated, James Kirk was lost in deep space, presumed dead when the Nexus disappeared in 2293, after encountering the _Enterprise_ - _B_. Six months later he was declared officially deceased by Starfleet Command and given a hero's memorial."

"And you repeatedly use the word _presumed_ , because when the Nexus reappeared in your 2371, your Jim was very much still alive, merely trapped within the confines of its energy field."

"That is correct."

"Then the Nexus is…what, precisely?"

"No one has ever been able to precisely quantify it, _pi'shal,_ for it has never been in one place long enough to be studied _._ I personally suspect it to be an entity of some kind – not malevolent, by any means, as it seems to wish its inhabitants to remain happy – but one which consists of energy and subsists upon that energy. From what a future captain of the _Enterprise_ was able to tell me, the Nexus appears to be an energy field which produces a state of…I suppose you would quantify it as artificially induced euphoria, Spock, for its inhabitants. It is able to discern a being's innermost dreams and desires, and then reproduces them in his surroundings, in order to keep him perfectly happy and content. Which is why, it is nearly impossible to convince someone trapped within the Nexus to leave its confines, due to that artificially induced mental state."

Spock leans back, mind reeling with this knowledge. This, is something he had not been planning upon when they set out for Terra. They have never encountered something of this nature, this magnitude, before; and this is not an enemy which can be fought against with phaser banks or diplomatic strategy.

"Once a being is convinced of the Nexus's dream-world state, however, he becomes dissatisfied with the world around him, and apparently is able to leave the place, into any space and time he chooses. This is one reason why I suspect the entity subsists upon _positive_ energy only, because it evidently allows a person egress once they are no longer happy within. It must keep its inhabitants content, in order to itself continue to survive. In other words, Spock: it is not innately malevolent, but it is most definitely dangerous."

He sits up abruptly. "You say that your version of Jim was alive when the entity reappeared, some seventy-eight years after his disappearance? Why then…" He stops, unsure of how to finish the question without further producing that look of pain which still lingers, every time this subject arises.

"He was alive, this I know because he was convinced to escape the Nexus by a future captain of the _Enterprise_ – convinced to leave that dream-world for the stakes of, as may not shock you, his ship being in danger. Indeed, danger to a star system as well, but it was the peril to a version of the _Enterprise_ which finally convinced him." Spock almost smiles, for that is no surprise. "However, in the process of assisting Captain Picard with his mission…"

Dismay, cold and nauseating, settles in his stomach, at the knowledge of how terrible that would be – to have that hope returned and then taken again so abruptly.

The fact that he may very well be in a similar position in not very many hours, is not at all assuring.

"At any rate, I found this out only through the kind efforts of Captain Picard, who found a way to pass the information on to me while I was on Romulus, deep undercover in the reunification efforts by this time. Picard was a good man, an excellent captain, and it was only sixteen years after these events that…well. Here I am, young one. I wish I had more helpful information for you, but I do not."

Spock shakes his head slowly, thinking. "This Nexus, then…it is not bound by time, space, or dimension, and there is no discernible pattern to its arrival or departure from the universe?"

"Not to our knowledge. To my recollection, it was not seen in my universe again in the sixteen years following its last appearance in the Veridian star system."

"Then it may already have left our universe, if it is indeed what attacked the Earth?"

The Ambassador's eyes close, and in that moment he knows what the humans mean when they use that peculiar metaphor about feeling the heart sink.

"Unfortunately, that is very likely, Spock. I am truly sorry. If what passed through your Federation's blockade and then moved on to Terra was indeed the Nexus, it very likely absorbed the entirety of the planet. They are not necessarily dead, young one, but they will not be returning to this universe."

* * *

The fire has long burned out by the time she finishes, leaving them under a weirdly artificial sky – half Terran constellations, half bits and pieces he remembers from nights spent on other planets – lit by the glowing embers of his boredom-fueled rampage earlier.

He isn't sure when she started crying, but he's pretty sure he's thinking about picking up where she left off and now she's looking at him like he's grown two heads but he's _freaked_ , okay, because who wouldn't be, and besides all that? She's basically confirmed exactly what he suspected. He's never getting out of here, because even if he did manage to, he no longer has a _body_ thanks to an inter-universal hitchhiker he somehow swapped places with when the veil between their universes tore somewhere. There's an older, wiser, kinder, _better_ version of him riding around in his body on his Bridge, and only his command crew knows any different, and probably in a year or two even they won't care.

He's entitled to one meltdown, okay.

"That is so _messed up_!"

An inelegant snort, as she flings an arm dramatically over her eyes. Her hair is now loose and flying crazy in the grass they’re lying on, looking up at the stars. It’s strangely casual, something they’d never be aboard ship. This place is oddly calming, oddly mellowing that way, although it's not really doing anything to fight off his increasing panic.

"Guess that explains why I don't really have a body here, though," he continues, rambling to himself. It's a nervous habit that drives his Bridge crew crazy, so he mostly broke himself of it shortly after taking command; but he picked it back up here, in this place, once he realized he had literally no one else to talk to. Bones no doubt would have a field day with the psychology behind that one.

She tilts her head, grass brushing her cheek, and eyes him curiously. "Say what now?"

"Oh, I'm a ghost, I guess. Or something. See?" He lets himself fade out for a minute, and she strangles out a sound that is vaguely akin to a chipmunk being sucked up in a vacuum hose. "The whole Cheshire cat thing lost its novelty after the first few years, let me tell you."

"Jim, it's been forty days."

"Maybe for you," he mumbles, snapping off a thick weed stem.

"So time moves differently here, then?" He can see the curiosity starting to push back the shock, his competent comms officer taking over in a time of crisis. Weirdly enough, in a strange reversal of sorts, it's oddly calming for him as well. The panic is pushed back inch by inch, and reason begins to reassert itself under her calm questioning.

"Your guess is as good as mine. Actually, better than mine, because how did you get here, anyway? Don't tell me you did something stupid and got yourself killed, because Spock will raise seven kinds of hell and probably destroy my ship in the process if you did –"

"Chill, Kirk. Actually, I'm not exactly sure what this thing is we're stuck inside; but whatever it is, it wiped out the entire Earth."

He raises himself on one elbow, horror shredding the last of his self-absorbed misery. "It what. And you’re just now mentioning this because why?"

She swallows, looking away for a moment, but not before he sees the lingering terror and grief that can only come from widescale tragedy – a look they both are far too familiar with.

"I don’t really have good intel for you, it happened too quickly. We only had hours of warning. The observation checkpoints got some kind of massive energy reading just minutes before they were wiped out, and then it took out the blockade around the planet in a matter of seconds. Only an hour later, it hit the Earth. Everyone and everything, gone. At least I'm assuming, gone; it definitely nuked the upper atmosphere in the last few seconds I remember."

"Gods. You're sure?"

"There's no way in the universe I would joke about something like that."

"What is it, a weapon of some kind? Or some kind of powerful alien we've never encountered?"

"That, is what's bothering me. I can't figure out its purpose, Kirk. It really seems to have no form of communication, because believe me the Federation tried – I was promised a clean slate if I could get it to communicate with us, and I tried everything in the two hours of warning we had – but I don't get the feeling that it's actually got malevolent intent. It is intelligent, at least, if not sentient, because it changed course in the Sol system to head straight for the single inhabited planet."

"What exactly is it?"

"A concentrated field of energy, only not a normal beam or wave of it, so not energy traveling in any way as we know it. More like a…ribbon, a fluctuating cohesive mass, of some kind."

"An _energy ribbon_?" His eyebrows pull a Vulcan vanishing act. "Give me a break."

"We've seen stranger things," she points out.

"True. So this thing just wiped out the entire population of the Earth and kept plowing on through the galaxy? With no one to stop it?" He feels sick. If it's intelligent enough to head straight for inhabited planets, then without Vulcan as what had previously been the next closest planet to Terra, it will head out into deep space, with any of a dozen planets as a target. The path will be impossible to predict, and likely impossible to save whichever planet is unlucky enough to be number two on the hit list.

"Well, the rest of your command crew, at least, were still on New Vulcan, and half the new 'Fleet is out on maneuvers in deep space so…there's a chance for a miracle?" She doesn't look convinced, and he can't blame her. They've faced some pretty impossible odds, and saved some doomed planets, but then again the universe loves to screw them over pretty royally too – and their track record in that area is just as spectacular.

"I…man. I can't imagine." He shivers, as the sun begins to truly disappear now, crickets chirping noisily somewhere nearby. "But how did _you_ end up in my tiny Olympus, and no one else? Not that I'm not thrilled to see you, Uhura, because at least you're worth your weight in busting out of this place, but how'd you end up in my corner of the world?"

"That's just it," she replies, rolling her eyes at his flippancy, because they both know it's to cover their mutual fear of the known. "I was first in some gorgeous but obviously non-Terran concert hall, like outrageously mega-expensive and full of important people all speaking different languages from across the galaxy. It was _bizarre_. I mean, I love music, you know it's the single universal language; and nothing would thrill me more than to be able to attend some of those intergalactic concerts that are booked decades out and cost more than we make in our lifetimes – but to go from being completely terrified of mass destruction on Terra to being dropped into _that_ in a matter of seconds?"

"Yeah, I'd be running for the fire exit screaming my head off."

She laughs, genuinely enough but slightly edged in hysteria. "Not a bad comparison. I was scared out of my mind, Kirk. I don't know how long I was wandering around in there, trying to find something familiar, and then just when I thought it couldn't get any worse – it all simply vanished, and I found myself here."

"Huh." He sits up, legs folded under him. "That's a little weird. I haven't been able to change _my_ scenery no matter how hard I try."

"Weird is one word for it. Why would I end up here? I hate camping, and I hate this kind of Terran scenery and climate."

"Lieutenant, I am so with you there. Other than the whole liking the desert thing. Why do you think I burned this place down again?"

" _Again_?"

* * *

If looks held the power to kill, Spock is certain both he and his elder counterpart would have been incinerated before either stepped foot from the turbolift.

Fascinating. Obviously his Jim is not the only one prone to what the humans call a _tantrum_ when he does not immediately get his own way.

"Done talking about me, then?" Kirk mutters, more than loudly enough for Vulcan hearing, though he is gracious enough to vacate the command chair for Spock to resume – likely more because he has no desire to begin a civil war on his own Bridge than truly out of respect for his assumed station.

"Yes," the Ambassador replies serenely, seating himself out of the way at the library station and fastidiously ignoring the drama in the central portion of the Bridge.

From the navigation console he hears a distinct snicker coming from their youngest two crewmen, and tolerates the gesture with resignation. They will need that emotional relief, should his fears regarding the fate of Terra prove well-founded in the next hour.

"Get offa me," the annoyed rumble from behind him draws his attention, and he raises an eyebrow, swiveling his chair in time to see an irritated swat send their erstwhile captain scuttling back from the Communications station, a guilty look on his face.

Honestly, the man is a menace.

"Doctor, are we receiving any transmissions from the Jupiter relay station?" he inquires, hoping to stave off any further confrontations.

"Negative." All business when the situation requires, McCoy's face is serious enough to silence the good-natured bickering. "Just that same emergency transmission on the channel from before. I'm not even receiving interference on the normal emergency channels, Spock. 'S almost like everything just got fried when whatever it was went through."

"We shall soon see, Doctor. Continue monitoring and report any alterations to me immediately."

"Yup."

He raises an eyebrow, as does Kirk from his seat across the Bridge, though McCoy has already turned back to his board without a further, more professional response. Deciding it is not worth the battle, he merely turns back toward the view-screen.

"Estimated time until we drop from warp, Mr. Chekov?"

"Thirty-six seconds, sir. We will drop just outside the perimeter of the Jupiter station's satellite ring."

"Very good, Ensign. Once we are within range, initiate sensor sweeps of the checkpoint and approach with caution, Mr. Sulu."

"Aye, sir."

"Dropping from warp in six. Five. Four. Three…two…and _now_ , sir."

The unsteady shiver of their powerful engines is still abnormal, but a smoother transition than their leap to warp had been; he mentally commends Engineer Scott for his work during the voyage.

"Jupiter station should be coming within range now, sir."

Spock waits until he sees the tension begin to increase in the young pilot's shoulders.

"Mr. Sulu?"

"One moment, sir." A glance toward his seat-mate, who is scrambling among the buttons and switches on their console, and then a nervous one backward at him. "Commander. Sir, I…"

"Yes, Mr. Sulu."

"Sir, we cannot seem to lock onto the station," Chekov interjects, whirling in his chair, eyes wide. "All sensor sweeps have come back negative for any structures in this sector, sir. There is…nothing out there to detect, sir, unless our sensor arrays are malfunctioning."

"Do your diagnostics indicate a malfunction, Ensign?" His voice betrays nothing.

"Negative, Meester Spock." The young navigator blinks rapidly, looking back at the console. "The diagnostic shows all normal."

McCoy's soft curse echoes what he is already thinking, and he shakes his head in silent agreement with the sentiment. "Then we must presume that the fate of the Federation's blockade was actually the second attack in the Sol system, and that the Jupiter station was the first, unable to relay a distress call before being destroyed."

"Aye, sir." Sulu swallows hard, and brings up a magnification of the screen. "Sir, these are the coordinates for the station. There's…not even a debris field left. No energy readings, no life-signs, no organic or artificial material left behind."

"How is that possible, Spock?"

"I have no more answers now than during our initial briefing, Doctor. We can only proceed in order to find them. Plot a course to Terra, Mr. Chekov, but one which will bring us to the planet under cover of the moon's orbit until the last possible moment."

"Aye, sir."

"Commander. If the whole planet really is gone, how are we going to…" Sulu grinds to a painful halt, eyes suddenly widening as obvious realization hits. "Sir, I didn't mean –"

Spock comprehends again, quite clearly, why this crew has become so very much more than simply colleagues in such a short time, under the unusual leadership of James Kirk. After these few years, the fact that Vulcan is no more rarely seems to even register with most off-worlders, and even fewer times than those is his personal loss acknowledged. The fact that he is half-human seems to some, to mean he does not feel the loss as sharply as his full-blooded kin – and yet, this crew, under the guidance of one remarkable human, has become more family than those kin, due to their wholehearted care and acceptance.

"At ease, Mr. Sulu." His words are quiet, possibly not as gentle as Jim's would have been in the same circumstance, but hopefully as reassuring. "The question is a natural one."

The young man's face regains some color in relief, and his unspoken apology is both acknowledged and discarded as entirely unnecessary. Jim had remarked recently that he thought their pilot had command potential, and he can see that now as well. He is remarkably like Jim in some ways.

"We have yet to ascertain those facts, but if and when they are verified, we will follow the procedures outlined in Emergency Protocol Alpha One-One-Zero-One. Starfleet Command has always been prepared for this eventuality, and there are procedures in place for such emergencies."

"Yes, sir."

"But one step at a time, Lieutenant. Scan the Sol system for any signs of an unidentified energy signature. We do not want any surprise visitors on our journey through the system."

"Aye, sir." Sulu's relieved exhalation as he turns back to the console with a task to perform is not lost on him. He and Chekov fall to work with both long and short-range scans, which will take approximately four minutes to perform.

He feels a slight pressure on the back of the command chair – a human arm, a presence unmistakable even if its owner is not quite himself.

"You're very good at this, you know." The words are quiet, so quiet that the rest of the crew likely will not hear them, but quite discernible to Vulcan hearing.

He pauses for a fractional second, before returning his attention to the data-padd upon which the scan information is slowly scrolling.

"I mean it. You would make an excellent captain, Spock."

"That is not my destiny, sir." He does not look up from the data, which at preliminary scan indicates no unknown energy signatures in the entire quadrant, not just the Sol system.

"No, I don't suppose it is." A hand rests on his shoulder briefly. "But I thought you should know, just the same. This ship would be in good hands."

He looks up, but the man is gone, back at the communications console and looking at a readout which McCoy is allowing him to see on the screen.

"Scans complete, sir. No signs of the…energy ribbon, anywhere in the Sol system." Chekov's voice is shaking, an unfortunate effect of the human nervous system when trying to control one's fear. Spock forgets, at times, how very young this crew is.

"Proceed toward Terra by Mr. Chekov's plotted course, Mr. Sulu. Full impulse power."

"Aye, sir. Full impulse power."

He pulls up the detailed scan report, but the ensign is correct; there are absolutely no indications of any sort of unusual energy signature currently existing in the Sol system, or indeed in this sector. Granted, if the Nexus is an interdimensional entity able to slip between universes at will, this is not unexpected, nor might it register on their instruments; but it is not an encouraging sign.

A sudden screeching of alarms from the science console startles them all, and it takes every instinct he has to not leap the intervening steps to his usual station and see the readout for himself.

"Report," he barks sharply, and without thinking the Ambassador is the one who responds, being at that particular console at the time.

"Unknown energy surge, directly ahead."

"Full stop, Mr. Sulu!"

"Aye, sir!"

A horrible screeching of machinery deep within the walls alerts him to the fact that Mr. Scott is not going to be happy with their unsafe, rapid deceleration, but if the Nexus is reappearing in front of them they must not fall into its energy field and suffer the same fate as the _Excelsior_.

"On screen."

"Uh, what on screen, sir. There's nothing there."

He lifts an eyebrow in the direction of the science station, and receives an answering eyebrow-shrug in return. "Reports indicate the surge is still occurring. Type unknown."

"Computer, analysis."

_"Working. Energy type unknown."_

"Speculate."

_"Definitive electrical patterns indicate at least rudimentary intelligence."_

"Yeah, that's probably it," Sulu murmurs, fingers flying over the scanners.

"But where is, _it_?" McCoy demands.

"My guess is _there_ ," Kirk drawls, leaning over the dividing rail just as what seems to be a rapidly-moving aurora of some kind suddenly winks into existence just seventeen degrees off the northern magnetic pole of Mars – not ten seconds' distance from them at full impulse power.

"Reverse thrusters, Mr. Sulu."

"You _think_ , sir?" the pilot demands, already ramming the impulse drive lever backward. Spock ignores the familiarity of address, for the cause is sufficient (and they have far more important matters at hand), and stands to look at the energy ribbon on the viewer.

"Magnify that image, Mr. Chekov."

"Aye, sir. Magnification twelve."

The image does little to assist them in any way, other than give them confirmation of what they already suspected – it appears, as reported, to be an energy ribbon, a strangely beautiful alien entity that is fluctuating strangely in the vacuum of space. Shimmering in a full spectrum of translucent hues, it is unlike anything he has ever encountered – strangely alluring, and by its very unknown nature, dangerous.

"Why did it come back, I wonder?" Kirk muses thoughtfully.

"Why, indeed. Or is its interdimensional shifting and reappearance completely random."

"Uh…it hasn't moved but the energy levels coming from it just _doubled_ , sir." Sulu glances at the console and casts a look backward at the science station. "You got a reading on that, Ambassador?"

"I do, but double the unknown does nothing but to increase the unknown," the elderly Vulcan replies calmly.

Both he and Kirk look sideways at his counterpart. "Not helping, Spock," the human says in exasperation, and for once he is in agreement.

"Whoa – did you see that?" Sulu exclaims, pointing.

"See what?" They turn, strangely synchronous, back toward the viewscreen.

"It just like, shot something at us – but I'm not getting any weapons reading or energy bombardment reading."

"Go to yellow alert, shields up," he orders, but a moment later the shield indicator wails a warning despite the quickness of their actions.

 _"Scott to Bridge,"_ their engineer's voice bellows through the comm a moment later.

McCoy punches the switch with a nervous fist, eyes still on the viewscreen. "We got our own problems, so this'd better be good, Scotty."

"Doctor, please."

_"Aye, and would our shields bein' penetrated by some unknown energy field be good enough problem for ye, Doctor?! Mr. Spock, I dunno what's happening but something's getting through. No amount of modulation on our part is gonna stop it."_

"Is not good." Chekov glances at the shield indicator. "Commander, energy levels increasing…and…"

Spock can almost feel the charge in the air, a strangely electrical hum that makes him wary of touching anything containing conductive material for fear of electro-static build-up, and they all look about warily. It could possibly be a scan of some kind…

Then…

Chekov's high-pitched squawk fills the void as the humming suddenly stops, followed shortly by a startled chorus of exclamations from around the Bridge.

"Waaaagh!"

" _Holy_ mother of – Mr. Spock!"

"I am aware, Mr. Sulu." He cannot explain the event; and if he must be truthful, at the moment he does not actually care about the means by which it was achieved; only that it _was_. "I believe we may safely deduce that the energy discharge which penetrated the shields was in fact a type of transporter beam."

"Do tell," Nyota says dryly, before subjecting him to a human kiss of such duration it receives raised eyebrows all around and a double thumbs-up from a grinning James Kirk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Literally, "shut your mouth." Essentially, the colloquial way of saying shut up.  
> (2) Duhik-bosh – literally, "being full of foolishness or stupidity."  
> (3) Tela'at – A term of respect meaning Elder (in TOS specifically, used for the elders in charge of the process of Kolinahr)


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The beginning of the end, here. And take the science behind the Nexus with a grain of salt, btw, since we know very little about it and what we do know makes very little sense.

**Chapter Nine**

"It's a long story, one I think you probably already know the majority of, and I don't have time to rehash it here," she says, and can tell immediately that Spock is beyond relieved at her directness. (He's also glad to see her, she can tell, but they're both officers enough to get back to business without a second thought, because time is short.)

But it’s got to have been a tough twenty-four hours, and an even more difficult last twelve without her as a buffer between him and emotional humanity. Spock is a better man, a better human and a better Vulcan, than he gives himself credit for; he is his own worst critic. He likely has performed admirably – probably better than Jim himself would in this situation – but he's probably about at the end of his Vulcan endurance and will need someone to rein in the world for just a few more hours.

Luckily, if Jim's plan goes, well, to _plan_? None of them will have to worry about any of this much longer.

But first, she has a promise to keep.

"I need to speak to you, and then to everyone else," she says in a low tone, just briefly touching Spock's arm.

"While I am…pleased, to see you, Nyota, that can wait."

"No. It can't."

"Lieutenant, may I remind you that –"

"I've come with a message from Jim," she interrupts, as delicately as she can. "And it can't wait."

His face turns a shade of pale she hadn't thought was possible.

"Sir, the entity has disappeared again!" Chekov's voice pipes up from in front of them, and she'd forgotten how cute the kid can be when he's excited. Being back here, again, after everything that's happened…she will do anything, sacrifice anything, to keep this. On that point, she and Jim Kirk are very much united.

"Remain in this position at full stop. If the residual energy readings show any alteration, alert me immediately."

"Yes, sir." Sulu glances between them for a second, and gives her a reassuring nod before turning back to the central seat. "We got this, Commander."

She sees him hesitate, still, for another second, duty obviously warring with curiosity, with feeling; and then that familiar figure steps forward – one she only just left, and yet she has to remind herself this isn't their captain, only his physical form – and suddenly she's on the receiving end of a piercingly sharp look that is so very much _not_ Jim that she has no problem believing it isn't him.

This James Kirk, can see right through her – and right through Spock. She probably won't even have to explain to him; he likely can see it on her face.

That might make things easier.

"Go on, Spock," is all he says, however, and makes a shooing motion with his hands that is actually very Jim. "Comm me when you want me, Lieutenant."

The fact that it obviously doesn't even occur to him to make a double entendre out of that sentence is more proof that this version of James Kirk is reasserting himself more clearly, erasing all signs of their own captain the longer he is in this universe; no longer can any of them pretend otherwise.

And if their Jim is mistaken in what he's planning, well…this is as close as they are going to ever get, so perhaps she should start trying to accustom herself to taking orders from him.

"Oh, for pity's sake, Spock, I'm not going to blow up my own Bridge if you take a ten minute break with your…what exactly do you call yourselves, Lieutenant, if you don't mind my asking?"

"If I do, you're still asking," she replies, amused.

"That I am." He gives Spock a gentle shove off the command dais, smiling innocently up at him as he sits. "Now shoo."

Spock looks oddly like he would love to fall back on old times and just strangle the man over the navigation console, but he follows her into the turbolift with only a faint sigh.

* * *

_"I've been thinking," she muses, idly swaying back and forth in the comfort of a well-worn quilt she’s managed to conjure up. Jim is still jealous she can manipulate this environment at will and he can’t even manage to keep his ass solid without thinking about it. "Maybe this entity, if that's what it is, tries to make the people it absorbs happy."_

_"I thought of that, like some giant galactic zookeeper. We've come across aliens like that before. This could just be a way bigger scale. It might not even really realize it's absorbing other sentient life-forms."_

_"Mm, it changed course in the Sol system to head straight for the only inhabited planet, so it has some kind of inkling at least.”_

_“Ah, you’re right.” He frowns. “Okay, so it does know it’s absorbing life. But does it actually understand what it’s doing to people?”_

_“That, it might not. It might not even recognize life-forms as anything other than conduits for electrical energy, or something.”_

_“Exactly. But it has to have some kind of idea that it needs to keep the things it absorbs in a certain, what. Mental state? Emotional state? Producing serotonin? Positive emotions?”_

_“That’s one explanation, at least. If it feeds off of serotonin or another brain chemical produced by the brain when humanoid life-forms are happy, that would explain the weird simulations. It's pulling wants or desires out of our heads that may actually exist somewhere in our psyches, designed to keep us in a euphoric state of peaceful existence.”_

_“A natural sedative to keep the food chain docile.”_

_She grimaces. “So to speak. They don't get human nature, obviously, or at least understand the intricacies of it, so they aren't precisely telepaths – it's like they're just honing in on the very deep subconscious. Those desires that perhaps we don't even know we have. Otherwise the simulations would look more like that Shore Leave planet we ran into last year."_

_"Makes sense. Believe me, I've given it an earful of desires, but I can’t so much as make the freaking birds shut up. Maybe my subconscious is defective."_

_She snorts and slaps his foot. He grins and wriggles it back out of reach, scoots closer to the fireplace. The cabin magically had rebuilt around midnight, right on schedule, and so they'd moved indoors when the temperature dropped. She obviously can feel the cold, though he can't tell the difference. Now the wind is whistling around outside, eerie and haunting._

_"Why'd it send you here, though, Lieutenant? From what I can tell, it may not even realize I’m here."_

_"Well." She glances at him, then looks away, as if debating whether or not to actually say the words. "If this thing actually draws on our emotions instead of our thoughts, or a combination of both. If it's not a telepath, it may have empathic tendencies as well."_

_"Aww, you wanted to see_ me _!"_

_"Don't flatter yourself. But at the time I landed here, I was terrified, not going to deny that much. So at the core of my subconscious, all I wanted was to feel safe, to go **home**." She tilts her head in invitation for him to make the logical next step, a gesture so Spock that it makes him want to sappy-grin._

_But her statement makes complete sense, and he sits upright, light bulb coming on. "But since your homes, Terra and the_ Enterprise _, don't exist here, and neither do your family – didn't you say they were on a nebula cruise a few weeks back? – or Spock, this thing just latched onto the closest association it could find in your memories that actually exists here and that happened to be me? Or the ghost of me, anyway."_

_She nods. "It's a theory. I don’t really have a better one."_

_"Interesting. And yeah, I'll bet it feeds off of positive energy, or positive emotions. You were basically poisoning it when you were unhappy."_

_"Well in that case it probably has one whopping stomach-ache because it just ate a planet full of terrified people," she replies dryly._

_A brief smile. "Not everyone is as strong mentally as you are, Lieutenant. Spock doesn't just love you for your –" He coughs at the death-glare he receives, and hastily corrects himself, "your looks. My guess is most people are easily taken over by whatever it does to make them so incredibly happy they never want to leave."_

_"An artificial paradise."_

_"Exactly."_

_"That's…diabolically clever. And an effective evolutionary mechanism, I suppose, if that's its species' means of surviving."_

_"Living at the expense of others' lives?"_

_"I didn't say it was the_ right _choice, Captain. But it's a natural choice, if that's their natural state of being."_

_"Well I didn't die just to see my crew lose their entire planet to a freaking energy ribbon, thank you very much. So. How do we bust out of this thing?"_

* * *

While she hadn't expected her story to be met with exuberant enthusiasm, given its content, she hadn't exactly thought Spock would suddenly look like…well, like he had in the warp core, less than six weeks ago.

"What is it?" she asks gently, because obviously something in her explanation has him completely spooked.

"You say that you were able to exit the Nexus simply by _desiring_ to be back with the command crew of the _Enterprise,_ wherever they might be at that moment in your universe’s timeline. That you did not have a specific minute and second in mind, nor did you have specific coordinates in time and space? And this was done by your simply intensely wishing to exit the energy field and arrive here?"

"We assume that's how it works, Spock. We didn’t exactly have a lot of data to work with, but through some experimenting and comparing notes about the simulations and its appearance before consuming Earth, we had to assume it was an inter-dimensional entity, meaning we would also be able to exit the entity into any dimension or timestream we chose."

* * *

 _"Oh, hell no._ Sir _."_

_"It's obvious the thing doesn't listen to or doesn't care about me, or it may not even realize I’m here, since someone hijacked my body and rode it back into our universe. But it dumped you here after your mini panic attack so it cares about you, or it's tuned in to you at least, giving you what you want or desire. And if it actually is feeding off of positive emotions, then it stands to reason we can poison it with negative ones, so I’m betting you can get it to let you go if you fight it hard enough. I’m **ordering** you to jailbreak, Lieutenant. I can’t have you still in here hanging around when I try to reset this thing.”_

_She's looking at him like he's about to do something really, really stupid, or else really, really brilliant – he honestly can never tell with her – and he returns the look with a glare of_ what? _before making a_ go on, then _gesture with his hands._ _He wouldn't have hesitated to kick her out himself, if he knew how – but he doesn't, and this is the only chance they have. They both know the risks, but she is the only one who has a chance of taking them in this case._

_"I doubt it's like using a vending machine, Jim," she says with a sigh of tolerant bemusement, settling down in front of the fire._

_He sprawls on the remaining blanket atop the shaggy rug and shrugs. "Still got a better chance than I do. Click your heels and wish for Kansas, Dorothy."_

_He phases into transparency as a steel-toed boot is flung good-naturedly at his head._

_“This may not even work.”_

_“If it doesn’t, we’ll know, now won’t we?”_

_“Ugh. Fine. I’ll try.”_

_“Throw everything you have at it.”_

_“Got it.”_

“ _And try to end up wherever the crew is at the present moment, we don’t want to jack up the timelines anymore than they are now.”_

_“I’ve **got** it, Jim.” She gives him a sad sort of smile. “Look, you’re taking a huge chance here. Get it right, yeah?”_

_“I’ll get it right,” he replies, trying to return the smile._

_“You’d better. Okay, let me focus a second.”_

_"Just promise me one thing, Lieutenant," he speaks up, as she closes her eyes to clear her mind of every thought but the desire to return to the_ Enterprise _._

 _She opens them again at the dead seriousness in his tone, and he hopes she can't tell that he's fighting back very un-captainly tears at the thought that if this doesn't work, it'll legit be the last time he sees any of his crew again – sees_ anyone _again._

_He'll die alone, this time – for real, this time – and someone else will get to live his life._

_"What's that, Captain?"_

_"Tell Spock…" The chill of fear isn't audible in his voice, thank God, so he continues, managing a calm smile he doesn't feel. "Tell him…don't let them give the_ Enterprise _to anyone but him, unless he wants it that way."_

_She looks at him for a moment in silence, eyes glinting in the firelight, and just as she opens her mouth to respond – she's gone._

_Not even proverbial dust settles in her wake._

* * *

"So we decided I would try the jailbreak, so to speak, mainly because we knew for sure I still had a physical body," she adds to the explanation. "And when I made up my mind to return to the _Enterprise_ , wherever she might be in the chronologically correct moment of the particular timeline my mind was still attuned to, well – the Nexus apparently spit me out onto the Bridge, right on schedule."

"Indeed." The word is almost an afterthought, and she leans forward, frowning.

"Not that I was expecting flowers and sonnets, Spock, but I thought you'd be happy to see me, at least." He's really freaked about something, something she doesn't know yet. "What are you not telling me?"

His eyes dart back to hers, dark and almost despondent with resignation. "Do not doubt that your escape from that place does not produce a most unVulcan reaction in me, Nyota." From him, that's akin to a fifty-thousand-credit diamond necklace and a love song, so she'll take it, and gladly. "But while your experience with the Nexus will prove valuable to us as an eyewitness observation of its inner workings, you are missing a vital piece of information that may very well have sealed the fate of everyone else within the energy field."

A chill runs down her spine. "Specify," she demands.

"According to the information my elder counterpart imparted to me regarding the appearance of this entity in his own universe, the ability to escape its confines, as well as the ability to physically enter its euphoric state by absorption into the energy field, occurs only once every seventy-eight years."

"What."

"Your escape is an unexpected benefit, Nyota, but unless the Nexus's arrival in our universe differs drastically from the pattern of its appearance in our parallel one, your premature exit may very well have condemned the rest of Earth's inhabitants to its confines for the next eight decades."

She stares at him in horrified silence for a moment, trying to process this.

"But…you said the ability to enter _and_ exit, Spock. It was several hours' time between its encounters in the Sol system, and it just randomly popped up again here. That doesn't constitute a singular appearance, so hasn't that already been proven incorrect? Or are you saying it only appears once in a twenty-four hour period?" Because that twenty-four hour period since the first attack has…just ended, she realizes with a sinking feeling.

He looks uncertain. "Perhaps those laws do not apply here, as it is slipping through the weaknesses in the time-space continuum due to our universe's manipulation of singularities and the paradoxes created by the intersection of multiple versions of ourselves. It may conceivably be able to, intentionally or not, circumvent that restriction."

"I certainly hope so, or we're all screwed." She sighs, pulls a weary hand down her face for a moment, staring off at nothing in particular. "We may very well be anyway, but at least this way we can gamble on a chance."

"I would be…interested, to hear this gamble." Spock's usually acidic skepticism is sharper than usual; he's obviously nearing exhaustion. "I cannot myself engender any scenario in which we reverse what has happened regarding the destruction of Terra, much less successfully complete our more personal mission."

"It's a pretty simple one, but Jim does have a plan." She sees interest spark in his eyes. "He wanted me out before he tried it, though, in case it backfires. _Ordered_ me out, in fact. Damn the man."

Spock's eyes soften, and he touches her hand in a rare gesture of human comfort he likely never would have done if they weren't all renegades from a Starfleet that doesn't even technically exist anymore, so who's standing on regulation here?

"And this plan would be?"

* * *

"He can't do that."

Spock raises an eyebrow, and across the table his counterpart does the same, the gesture looking more like an eyeroll than anything else. Kirk's leaning forward in his earnestness, face drawn with tension, and she will stake her non-existent commission that fireworks are about to start.

"I believe you will find that no one is able to control what that particular human does or does not do," the Ambassador observes calmly.

"No, I mean he _literally_ can't! Even if the whole seventy-eight years thing isn't applicable here, if what the lieutenant says is accurate, he has no physical form in the Nexus. If he tries to leave without one, he'll just end up a disembodied soul wandering the cosmos, won't he?"

"He has a point," she murmurs, because that had been her precise objection to being booted out of the Nexus before Jim tried his idiotic stunt – but he had wanted her home before he tried it, in case it didn't work, in case something went wrong and the Nexus caught on to his plan and closed its gates forever, or something like that. "Is that even possible?"

"What, for a so-called human soul to be wanderin' around the universe unchecked? If anybody could, it'd be Jim Kirk," McCoy growls, arms folded. "But practically speaking? I doubt it. He's just going to blink himself out of existence for good."

"Perhaps not," Spock muses, brow drawn in thought. "If, as he proposes, one is able to depart the Nexus at any point in time and space, then in theory he, as that very disembodied soul, might be able to exit at the precise moment at which your _katra_ unintentionally entered our captain's regenerated body." He glances from the Ambassador back to his left side, whereupon Kirk flushes uncomfortably. "In that case, he might very well be able to reset this entire series of events, restoring the original timestream and preventing them from ever occurring. In theory, it is possible."

She notices that Spock very carefully does not look at his elder self, and no wonder; the carefully controlled sadness in the poor Vulcan's eyes is breaking her heart. But this has to be done; resetting the timeline is the only solution she can see, too.

"And if he's even one second off in that exit, or if you're wrong and there really is only one chance to leave and that door closed behind the Lieutenant here?" McCoy demands, one hand waving in demonstrative agitation. " _Nothing_ will change, and we'll all _still_ be stuck in this nightmare, just with the added knowledge that he's wandering the universe like Scrooge's ghost for all of eternity!"

"Not to mention the fact that his resetting the timeline, even if successful, will not negate the appearance of the Nexus in our universe; we will still have that to contend with and _that_ is our primary mission here, Doctor."

"Not necessarily," Kirk says thoughtfully. "If the Nexus is slipping through into this dimension because of the weaknesses in your interdimensional walls, then resetting the timeline I accidentally warped with my appearance should in theory patch those holes back up too. You shouldn't have that…leakage, if you will; so the Nexus should remain safely in our universe. It will never have slipped through in the first place. Your earth and its people will be safe."

She shakes her head, still trying to wrap her brain around the physics of it all. "This is all hinging on the idea that his gamble is correct and he can actually make that timeline reset. The timing would have to be exact, and he would have to be able to re-enter his cryo-storage body at the very instant his brainwave patterns are restored."

"The captain has made such gambles successfully before, and against worse odds. Unless one of us is able to deliver a better plan of action, I would suggest we consider his."

"There's a bigger problem," Kirk interjects quietly, cutting off Spock's disgruntled diagnosis with such seriousness that it gets all their attention on the instant.

Yeah, looks like he figured it out. She isn't going to have to have The Talk with him, after all. His eyes suddenly meet hers across the table, and she can tell he knows – knows exactly what she would have done as soon as this pretense of a briefing was over, exactly what message she had to carry from their Jim Kirk to this well-meaning imposter.

"What's that?"

"The problem, Bones…is that at some point, in that other universe, the Nexus still has to be holding a Jim Kirk when Captain Picard shows up to enlist his help in saving the _Enterprise_ and the Veridian star system." Blue eyes glance around the table, one by one. "If one of us doesn't stay, then the _Enterprise_ burns that day in 2371, and thousands of innocent people with her."

"Changing history significantly," she clarifies. “We have no idea how much that might affect your timeline, Ambassador. It could even affect ours, by extension.”

"It could very well change your histories due to the close proximity of the Veridian system to Romulus and Spock's presence there at the time, we just have no idea. The fact that nothing has changed here yet for you is indication only that in the timeless world of the Nexus, Picard hasn't shown up yet. We have no idea how much time is on that clock."

"What you are suggesting is unacceptable." Spock's voice is pure ice.

"I suggest nothing, Commander; but I am stating facts. Whether they are _acceptable_ to you or not, those _are_ the facts." She has to hand it to the man, he obviously has had more practice in not backing down under Spock's death-glares. "Your precious captain, well-meaning as he is, can't be in two places at once, so leaving the Nexus is only going to shift your current problems back into another universe. You can't just play hot potato with a whole planetful of innocent people!"

Annnnd wow, he obviously has had more practice finding chinks in Spock's armor too, because that was _low_ , and everyone in the room knows it.

"Do _not_ speak to me regarding matters about which you know nothing."

"I'll speak to you however I darn well please, Mister, if you're endangering my ship and the fate of two universes by backing an idiot who doesn't think before he acts!"

Honestly, is the man _trying_ to get them all to hate him?

"Hey! You got no call to be like that when the kid's done a hell of a lot more for this universe than anyone else I know and been nothing but screwed over for it!"

"Really, Doctor." The man looks across the table with tolerant fondness, but the condescension is obvious. "Isn't having one child enough for you? Do you really need a second one aboard ship to feel like you're a successful parent?"

"How dare you, you little –"

"Yes, do add name-calling to the image, Doctor. You _are_ at least an actual medical doctor in this universe, yes?"

It's actually Spock who half-stands then, hands on the table and danger in his eyes, and she's had enough. She shoves him back in his seat with one well-practiced hand and, bracing against the table with the other, gives Kirk's magnetically-wheeled chair a firm boot across the room. The man's eyes widen as it scoots a good ten feet under the force of her kick, but he scrambles out of it with alacrity. "All right, enough – you, out. Spock, just…ugh. Chill for a minute."

Kirk's already wisely exited the room and she catches up just outside, in time to see him lean heavily against the wall with his head tilted back against the cold durasteel, eyes closed in what looks like complete misery.

"You could just say goodbye instead of being an asshole, you know," she says conversationally, leaning against the opposite corridor wall.

The man's eyes fly open. "What?"

"Oh, please. I'm an interpreter, Captain. I've never seen such a pathetic attempt to cover up the fact you're about to go pirate coordinates from the navigation console and set the transporter on auto as soon as that thing pops into existence again. Or am I not good at my job?"

Kirk's eyebrows slowly return to normal, and he shakes his head with a rueful laugh, bitter and painful. "No, Lieutenant. You are quite good at your job, apparently."

"If you wanted to make it easier for them to let you go, well, congratulations; I don't think they're going to forget that little hissy-fit anytime soon. But if you think that's going to earn you forgiveness when you suicide bomb that thing?"

"That, unfortunately, has to be last on the priority list right now, Lieutenant. And somehow, I think you knew that when you came back."

She sighs. "Frankly, I'm a little relieved you figured it out on your own, sir. How Jim knew about the future timeline, I have no idea. Maybe your Ambassador told him at some point, about your death and how it happened. But he was…not helpful, in how to point that out to you. I thought him resetting the timelines would just fix everything but he said that’s not necessarily how time travel works?"

The man snorts. "There are a half dozen prominent theories about that, and even in my day scientists were still divided about the ripple effects. That’s why it’s always the one thing even the Vulcan Science Academy never played with.”

“Yeah, he lost me with a couple of the theories. I think he wrote a thesis on one of them in the Academy. His father died as the result of a singularity, you know.”

“I didn’t, but that motivation doesn’t surprise me. This kid must be something else."

"He is."

The man regards her for a moment in silence, eyes softening. "So I've learned. And…I hope, that he knows what he's doing, that in a few hours this will all be over for you, Lieutenant."

"No offense, sir, but so do I."

"But if he doesn't…"

"You still have to go back," she finishes quietly, and the man nods, painful resignation making those familiar eyes seem so many, many decades older.

"Whether he succeeds or fails, I do. If he succeeds, I likely will vanish, quite effectively; but if I don’t, I must return, or there will be a physical body paradox that the universe may not accept. And if he fails, and becomes lost to us all somewhere unknown in space and time? I must still return to the Nexus, because there will be no one for Captain Picard to enlist aid from in my own future timeline."

"That sucks, sir."

A snort of laughter. "It does indeed, Lieutenant. I quite like this universe, if I am to be stranded in one not my own." He glances backward at the briefing room doors, and she sees his eyes grow unspeakably sad. "I hate leaving him alone, again," he says softly. "He deserves far better than the universe has given him."

She does not need to ask for clarification; only an idiot would not be able to see what is in front of her.

Then they both look up in alarm as the red alert klaxon begins blaring overhead, shrieking a piercing warning that sends all the occupants of the briefing room hurrying out into the corridor, arguments forgotten.

_Danger. Danger. Proximity Alert. Unknown Energy Field Detected. Collision Conditions Imminent. Danger._

She barely has time to meet Spock's wide eyes before the ship pitches violently, throwing them all to the floor with enough violence that she's actually worried that the old Vulcan might have broken a hip or something. But he's apparently made of sterner stuff, because he clambers laboriously back to his feet after a moment, looking more worried than in pain, and extends a hand to McCoy, who is swearing up a streak that would do a recycling barge crewman proud.

 _"Commander Spock to zhe Bridge, **please** ,"_ Chekov's panicked near-screech comes through the wall-panel beside her ear. Spock doesn't bother to help her up, as he is well aware she can take care of herself, only punches the comms button with more force than is warranted, eyes pinched with tension.

"Mr. Chekov, report."

 _"Sir, ve haf no varning at all!"_ The poor kid's accent is making him nearly indecipherable, an indication he's about to freak out on them completely; and no wonder, if he's alone with Sulu on the Bridge and the senior command staff trapped below – the diagnostic Spock's just pulled up says the lifts and other essential systems are offline at the moment – and he is speaking over the sound of multiple wailing alerts from various controls. _"The energy ribbon just came out of novhere, sir!"_

"Not good," McCoy mutters. They all stagger as the floor pitches beneath their feet again, a horrible grinding screech somewhere below and aft, indicating the ship is unhappy at her proximity to the enormous gravimetric disturbances associated with the Nexus.

"Proceed away from the singularity at maximum warp, Mr. Chekov." Spock is hurrying down the corridor and she follows close at his heels, hoping the lifts will be back online by the time they reach the primary terminal.

 _"Sir, we can't,"_ Sulu's voice comes through the nearest comm-channel, calm but with an underlying thread of tension. _"The thing popped out of space and raked right across the port nacelle, took it out completely. We're venting plasma at a dangerous rate, sir, and any attempt to go to warp could ignite a chain reaction that would destroy the ship and every planet in this system when our core goes up."_

"It would appear that our supposition regarding the Nexus's appearance every seventy-eight years is indeed inapplicable in this universe," the elderly Vulcan muses aloud. "You would do well to steer clear from it immediately, young one; a hull breach with only a skeleton crew for repairwork would not be advisable."

She wants to laugh at the annoyed look Spock gives his older counterpart, but she doesn't – because she's noticed what they obviously haven't, too busy with duty and the manual override Spock is entering into the lift controls.

The turbolift whines and grinds but appears to be ascending to their level, so that is a small favor. The comm-panel suddenly sparks into life beside the doors, giving them the static interference and minor explosions indicative of a chaotic Engineering section.

_"Engineering to Commander Spock."_

"Spock here."

 _"Sir, what the devil are ye doin', sendin' out a shuttlecraft in this blasted electrical storm? There is no way she'll survive that kind of energy field intact! No matter how badly ye need close-up readings from the thing, a probe would do just as well! There isna need to sacrifice the_ Galileo _just because we **can** , sir!"_

"We have done nothing of the kind, Mr. Scott. Such an act would be pointless, as…" Spock halts suddenly, hand clenched on the controls, and then whirls around with inhuman speed, pale as the spotless walls of the lift itself.

Jim Kirk is long gone.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

"Get a tractor beam on that shuttlecraft, Mr. Sulu!"

Poor Sulu jumps half out of his chair as Spock fairly snaps at him even before he's out of the turbolift, and turns in his seat, hands still steady at the controls. Uhura sighs and takes the comms station, though there's really nothing she can do from here except run interference with Scotty, bless him.

"Tractor beams haven't even been re-installed, Commander." The young pilot winces at the look he receives, but holds his ground. "Sorry, sir."

As if unconsciously avoiding the command seat, Spock detours around it to stand at the viewscreen, staring expressionless out at the expanse of deep space, broken by the shimmering, flickering aurora lurking off their port bow as they hover dangerously close to its outer edge.

McCoy finally just pulls up the Library station chair and flops into it beside her, head in his hands. Poor guy, he really needs some sleep, and a vacation, and probably some new friends, as underappreciated as he is.

Hopefully, Jim will reset this timeline (any time now would be good, Jim) and none of them will remember any of this.

The ship suddenly slides in a dangerous skew, aft-first, toward the entity, yanked off-course by the gravitational disturbances. It takes both Sulu and Chekov's combined efforts and some creative yelling from Engineering to get them back into what amounts to a controlled drift.

"Mr. Scott, I need that plasma vent cut off," Spock warns, hovering over her shoulder.

 _"Don't we all, sir!"_ is the exasperated reply that comes through the channel. _"I'd like ta have a fully functional Engineering crew as well, sir, but ye'll have t'do with just me! I wasna plannin' on runnin' a space battle by meself down here!"_

McCoy's head lifts wearily. "I know how to read diagnostics and reports as well as the next officer, Scotty. Not like I'm any good up here on the Bridge, could you use an extra pair of hands?"

_"Aye, Doctor, and a good eye for detail as well – ye'd be much welcome."_

"On my way." He looks up for a moment, glances between the two of them. "Just…let me know when it's over, will you?"

Spock's jaw tightens, she can almost hear his teeth grinding, but he nods. "If all goes to plan, Doctor, perhaps we will not have to."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Have a little more faith in Jim than that, Leonard."

He regards her for a moment in silence, and she can see the defeat in his eyes; one too many heartaches in the last few weeks have badly damaged that faith which is so vital to his profession, and his dedication to this ship and this captain.

"Have more faith in both of them, Doctor McCoy," a calm voice says quietly from behind them, and they all turn as a group. They've all kind of forgotten they are not the only ones probably in the middle of a silent panic attack here.

"Ambassador –"

"You knew this outcome was forthcoming," Spock accuses suddenly, obviously seeing something she can't in his counterpart's expression.

What looks like fond amusement mingled with sadness glints in the elderly Vulcan's eyes. "I know my captain, young one. Both in chess and in battle, he is a master strategist in misdirection; to one who knows him, his actions were only too easy to predict, down to his purposely provoking behavior in your briefing room."

Spock blinks, the idea evidently never having occurred to him; he really is off his game.

"But you – " He hesitates, uncertain.

"Allowed him to leave, believing his deception was successful?"

"Indeed."

"Quite so, _pi'shal._ I believe you all have learned, that the knowledge one is doing the right thing, does not in any way negate the painfulness of a goodbye."

Well, damn. She glances at McCoy, and sees sudden realization in his eyes – and about time, too, because she knows it's bothered him since the Warp Core Incident, and it was a small point of contention for a long time, that Jim just went in there and never thought to call Sickbay, that Spock was the only one who really got to say goodbye.

In his own way, maybe that said more clearly than anything else, just how much more Jim cared about all of them than he could ever actually say with words.

"Not to break up this lovefest or anything but we are like _way_ too close to this energy ribbon!" Sulu yells from the helm, punching buttons with a speed that is almost inhuman. "Pavel, give me whatever thrusters we have left!"

"That would be _nothing_!"

"Right, Engineering," McCoy mutters, as if coming out of a trance, and bolts for the turbolift.

"Locate that shuttle if possible," Spock says to her in a low tone before whirling back to the viewscreen to see the readouts, snapping orders as he goes.

She doesn't tell him she already had before the Ambassador even started talking – and that the readings indicated it had broken apart on the outer fringe of the Nexus.

* * *

"Why are these distortions getting worse? The thing should have disappeared by now, or made a move against us. So why is it just sitting there?"

She can't really understand why the Nexus is still lurking around in their universe; obviously Jim's plan hasn't worked or else he hasn't tried it yet, and they have no way of knowing whether or not Kirk even made it back into the Nexus before the shuttle broke apart under the intensity of the gravimetric disturbances. If the entity is looking for new sources of energy, why hasn't it absorbed the _Enterprise_ yet? And if it's not, then why hasn't it slipped back through into its parent universe?

"Energy readings have tripled in the last ten minutes, Meester Spock," Chekov reports nervously, running a hand through his damp curls. "I do not know why, sir, and the energy type is unidentifiable. And the disturbances are getting worse also."

Spock nods mechanically, staring at the padd before him. He is obviously scanning the reports of structural damage; if they are to make a getaway once the plasma vent is sealed, they need to know just how far he can and can't push the ship. She had been hoping Jim would make his move before they had to risk the _Enterprise_ , but apparently he loves keeping them on the edge of their seats. Literally, since the ship is being bounced about like a tennis ball, caught between gravity pockets.

"Sir! Massive energy buildup!" Sulu's exclamation pulls all their attention to the viewscreen, where the Nexus's outline has begun to glow a blindingly bright white.

"I doubt that's a good thing," she mutters, as she comes to stand beside Spock. Squinting at the screen, searing to the retina even though it's been automatically dimmed, she can barely tell where the outlines of the entity are – it's becoming just an increasingly blurry area of painful intensity. "Can you tell what's happening?"

"Scans are inconclusive; energy unknown."

"Uh…not good!" Sulu leans back instinctively as the blur of light seems to grow larger. "We're not moving, Commander, that thing's moving _at_ us!"

"Reverse thrusters."

"We _have_ no thrusters, sir! Not until we get that plasma vent sealed!"

"Release all airlock systems on sealed decks. The depressurization may push us out of its trajectory."

"Airlock systems are off-line, sir!"

Spock's eyes close in an almost comical gesture. "What precisely _is_ online and installed on this ship, Lieutenant?"

"Uh…life support, sir?"

"A laudable accomplishment for Starfleet's esteemed Engineering division." She elbows him gently, because his sarcasm only comes out when he's incredibly stressed; and while under normal battle circumstances it only makes Jim spit-take his coffee – in this case, it's not doing anyone any good.

"Impact in ten. Nine. Eight."

"We are all able to count, Lieutenant."

"Spock, hush." She rests a hand on his sleeve cuff, braces herself as the entity – if it can be called that – speeds toward them, gaining momentum by the instant.

Just before it impacts, she frowns; it doesn't look like it did when it hit the Earth, at all. The Nexus had been a shimmering, multi-hued mass of energy and color; this is more like a straight beam of pure white light, clean and sterile and empty, almost like a void…

…of complete _nothingness_.

Then it hits, blinding and searing

and _disintegrating_ ,

and

The bell rings for dismissal, dispensing these morose thoughts with an impressively ear-splitting screech, and she watches the students hurry from the room in varying stages of excitement. Hers is the last period of the day, and they're obviously eager to begin their weekends.

Lucky them.

She clears the holo-screen, and takes the next twenty minutes to finish grading the last batch of research papers the students had turned in this week, so that the grades can reach their inboxes before Friday evening. Another thirty minutes and the rest of her paperwork is done, the messages sent, the grades filed, and she can finally close up shop. Maybe she can call up Christine Chapel for a last-minute girls' night.

Only then, does she see her comm-unit has been blinking with six missed calls and a variety of messages. The majority are from the Medical wing; McCoy has tried to get hold of her in the last two hours, apparently, but there's also a couple text messages from Hikaru, who has taken it upon himself to be the central clearing house for the remaining _Enterprise_ crew's fast-moving gossip chain, while they're grounded here on Terra.

She flips open the communicator to read the messages and then nearly drops the instrument while trying to snatch up her jacket and tote bag. She's out the door in ten seconds, and halfway across the quadrangle in ten more.

_He's waking up._

_Also, your boyfriend just pissed off Admiral Barrett by interrupting her and telling her to finish the debriefing in writing because "urgent matters required his attention elsewhere." LOL_

* * *

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic. You were barely dead. It was the transfusion that really took its toll; you were out for two weeks."

There's _way_ more to that story, he can see it in Bones's eyes, but he's too surprised to be alive to question the man right now. Also, he can barely keep his eyes open as it is; only the fact that he's just a little afraid to close them again is keeping him awake at the moment, because he would swear the gravity is tripled on this bio-bed, so strong is it pulling at him.

That, in addition to the jumbled hodgepodge of horrific scenes which are seared into the last bits of his memory before it all just…ended. He assumes the _Enterprise_ is safe, because Spock said the ship was out of danger and even Spock wouldn't lie to a man on his deathbed – but the panic is still very recent, and Khan's treachery will haunt them for months to come.

"Transfusion?"

"Your cells were heavily irradiated. We had no choice."

So that's why he feels like he's been gone for decades, at least – and why his body feels so heavy and weird and wrong and that was one _hell_ of a coma-dream, seriously.

"I just had the trippiest nightmare, Bones, for real," he mumbles, as the medical instruments beep annoyingly in his ear.

"You're lucky to be dreamin' at all, given that we had to regenerate your entire memory cortex." The words are calm enough, but he sees straight through the façade to the terror hidden underneath, and so catches feebly at the hand that adjusts his intravenous drip.

Bones looks at him for a minute in silence, and then carefully tucks his hand back under the blanket, like he's five years old. It makes him weirdly want to cry, because there were many times in the last few hours he thought he'd never see his crew again. Even if it only feels like centuries, he's almost forgotten what this feels like, to be cared about like this – to be _loved_.

"You can stop lurking back there," Bones then grumps over one shoulder, while he reaches up to adjust the overhead monitors.

A figure dislodges itself from the shadows like some Vulcan Batman, and he grins as it approaches his bed, looking unusually hesitant.

"Yo," he says, waving two fingers at his First.

The sigh of put-upon tolerance is hilarious, as is Spock's attempt to act like he and Uhura haven't been camping out here every day for the last several; how else would they have figured so heavily into his regen dreams?

Speaking of, sleep is still pulling at him, beckoning him with the sweet promise of uninterrupted peace and quiet and hopefully less crazy unconsciousness; but one thing concerns him, and he has to know before he leaves the world of awareness again.

"You gonna get in trouble for this, Bones?" he asks, not even trying to hide the jaw-cracking yawn that elongates the man's name mid-syllable.

"For what, kid? Spock's already erased all the records of anything happenin' here but some very progressive alternative medicine." A wide grin, and the man pats him on the shoulder. "You were seriously injured in the warp core implosion but there's nothing gonna keep the captain of the _Enterprise_ down for long."

He blinks, trying to process this obviously faulty information against a flood of what have to be the really, _really_ good drugs. _Really_ good, because something doesn't exactly add up, but maybe that was just part of that bizarre dream. "So…no court martialing?"

Bones pales. "Good God, I hope not. Spock?"

"Not possible, Doctor. The only members of the Admiralty who know part, if any, of the true facts are those who would be incriminated in the events sanctioned by Section 31. The facts becoming known would therefore initiate a vicious cycle of blame and demotion which they are not willing to begin."

"Huh." Well, okay then.

"Where did that come from, anyway? Y'alright, Jim?"

"Yeah…yeah, I am." He smiles, and lets his eyes slide closed, heavy with relief. "Like I said, weird dream, Bones."

"Hey, don't go to sleep on me just yet, kid. We talking ate-a-bad-burrito weird, or Tarsus flashback weird?"

He slits one eye, then rolls it at his two hovering mother-hens. "Parallel universe weird. Now go 'way, I'm sleeping. That's an order from your captain."

McCoy snorts. "Yeah, you're fine. C'mon, Spock, let's leave _Captain_ Kirk 2.0 to his naptime."

"Your flippancy is not amusing, Doctor."

He snorts a laugh into his pillow. "Oh, come on, Spock. It's a _little_ funny."

Bones fusses with the thermal blanket for another minute before there's a small scuffle and he's obviously pulled away, protesting in a pissed-off whisper. A moment later, Jim can tell even through closed eyelids that the lights are dimming, and then only the sounds of the recovery ward disturb his drowsing thoughts.

Well, those and this strange dream sequence that seems to be repeating inside his head.

Granted, there's bound to be some complications when your brain cells have basically been fried by radiation poisoning and then regrown using an unknown compound; who knows, maybe he's developing telepathy or telekinesis or any of those other awesome _tele_ -things due to the effects of the transfusion.

He'll ask Spock about it tomorrow.

For now, he's just going to be glad to be alive.

* * *

Spock freaks.

In his own quietly logical Vulcan way, of course, but he still flips out completely, when he hears about the issues Jim's having. Bones is more curious than alarmed, but then he's not the one who is having random memory flashes of stuff that never happened, or getting weird premonitions about things that apparently just haven't happened _yet_.

Spock says his memories have been tampered with; McCoy counters that that's not possible, since he's been in Starfleet Medical since he left the _Enterprise_. Jim patiently endures the argument for twenty minutes while he inhales the burger and milkshake Nyota smuggled past Bones's distracted eagle eye and then puts a stop to the catfight with all the command authority he can summon while wearing only a hospital gown and those stupid biodegradable paper slippers.

In the end, more to prevent Spock from having a stroke than anything else, he convinces Bones to discharge him under his personal care and for them all to spend their mandatory leave on New Vulcan, while the Khan incident is investigated. He promises to see a mind healer there, if it will get Spock to stop looking like he's going to have a heart attack every time Jim so much as pops a headache pill, and maybe then Bones will stop jumping him with a hypospray and chicken soup every ten minutes.

He gets it, they're all still a little on edge, but honestly – they're going to drive him nuts if they don't chill.

So his brain’s still a little scrambled. They seem to forget he was never a poster child for mental stability anyway, and he did just _die_ , after all. Cut him some slack.

The heat on New Vulcan is practically _volcanic_ this time of their seasonal cycle, and while he's surprised to find they are anticipating actual precipitation at some point in the next month, there's no trace of moisture in the air when they arrive, some ten days after he awakens on Terra.

Old Spock (he pretends not to notice his Spock cringing when he affectionately calls the elderly Vulcan that, much to the ambassador's amusement) seems genuinely pleased to see them, and once he learns that the last contact the poor guy had with them was Spock's terse transmission right before going into battle with Khan, over 40 days ago, he can see why.

"You couldn't at least let him know we were, y'know, still alive?" he demands, their first night on the planet.

Spock, to his credit, looks shifty as hell. The two of them might as well be marking their territory in increasingly small circles around him, it's equal parts annoying and adorable. And also a little freaky.

"In all fairness, Jim, we weren't entirely sure you _were_ ," Bones drawls, from where he's sprawled half-asleep on the ambassador's sofa.

"Knowing what I do about Khan Noonien Singh, Jim, I am only pleased that your crew escaped as intact as they did," the Ambassador interjects calmly. "The outcome could have been far worse, I assure you."

Spock glares at his counterpart somewhat rebelliously over the top of his tea-mug, until Nyota's elbow nearly makes him spill it all over himself. Jim covers his snort in his own water-glass; Bones is pumping fluids into him like he's leaking from every pore, and given the searing temperature that might not be entirely inaccurate.

But how ridiculous is it, that he's been able to walk on his own for two days now and yet he still is like an old man, wanting to crash when it's not even 2030 hours yet?

He's obviously not fooling anyone, either, because Bones is staring at him pointedly from all the way across the room, and Nyota must pick up on it because within seconds she's said their goodbyes and dragged Spock out the door toward Sarek's house.

Jim is on his way down the steps to the lower level, where the guest bedrooms are, when he pauses, surprised. "Is that thunder?" he asks, incredulous. "I thought you guys didn't have storms here."

"We do not have precipitation, to speak of," the elder Spock corrects him. "However, there have been unusual electrical storms in the upper atmosphere during the last ten days which indicate a possible climate change in this hemisphere. Soon, we may indeed see a severe rainfall for the first time in many months – some of these younglings, for the first time in their lives."

"Huh. Is that something the Federation should be worried about?"

"Negative." A small smile. "The Vulcan Scientific Council is quite capable of observing the phenomenon, and should it prove harmful in future to the colony, the Federation will be informed. Until then, it will prove only a minor inconvenience."

"Still weird, though."

"I shall pass your learned observations on to the council, Jim."

Bones's snicker follows him as he nearly trips down the steps, laughing to himself. Man, he can't wait until Spock loosens up enough to poke fun at him without being prodded or guilt-tripped.

Another distant peal of thunder shakes the house at its foundations, and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. Something's just not quite right, he can feel it.

Then again, that could just be the transfusion from Starfleet's resident nutjob fueling his brain cells.

* * *

He wakes up terrified.

For a second he can't tell if he's shaking from the cold or from the legit pants-wetting _fear_ that's threatening to obliterate what calmness he still may possess after the awfulness of the last two weeks. But that can't be right, because a minute ago he was on fire, literally burning from the inside; he could feel his lungs practically melting away under the relentless march of radiation poisoning. And his eyesight is already gone, he can't even see Spock anymore, and he shouldn't be so _scared_ , he is the _Captain of the Enterprise, damn it,_ and he never apologized to Spock for being such an ass about that stupid Kobayashi Maru simulation, because yeah, he kind of sees the point now –

"Lights, twenty percent."

The calm voice shatters both illusion and darkness, and after the initial white-hot flash of panic he realizes where he is, and what is happening.

"Spock?" The question's muffled into the blanket he's trying to unwrap from around his throat, so hopefully it's not obvious that it's more a sob than anything else.

"Affirmative, though not the one you are likely requesting."

He manages to laugh, genuinely enough, at the old man's quiet humor. "I'll take it."

Finally. He takes a deep breath as the constriction comes free. Obviously, his subconscious has as much fascination with choking him as most of the aggressive alien species they come across.

"Would you like me to wake Doctor McCoy?"

"Dude, no. Sorry I woke you." He stands, wobbles slightly, and then moves across the room, leans for a moment with one hand against the wall and his head down, steadying his breathing. "Was I screaming?"

"No, Jim. You were…crying."

Awesome. As if they haven't imposed on the poor guy enough, as if his presence probably isn't enough of a painful reminder, he has to go and dump a whole new level of emotional trauma on him too.

"Yeah, Bones said I've been doing that, since…well, sometimes. The stupid thing is I can't remember _why_. I keep having this weird dream sequence, it always starts with the – with the warp core, and it ends with something, something I can't remember when I wake up. I just know whatever it is, it scares the shit out of me."

"Perhaps the lack of memory upon awakening is for the best, if this reaction is the result. Fear can be the mind’s way of protecting one’s self from harm."

He snorts. “You’ve been up late talking to Bones, haven’t you.”

A graying eyebrow rises slightly, though the look is more fondly nostalgic than offended.

"Anyway, thanks for waking me up," he sighs, and sinks back down on the guest bed, a low-slung affair with surprisingly comfortable pillows and plenty of blankets to ward off the chill of a desert evening.

"Of course. I shall leave you to your second attempt, then."

He starts to wriggle back under the sheets as the ambassador turns away. Then the old Vulcan pauses, and turns back. "Jim."

"Yeah?"

"If you find yourself in need of…discussing, the events which occurred aboard the _Enterprise_ , you are more than welcome to seek me out at any time during your stay."

"Thanks, Spock." A Vulcan being willing to let a human 'talk it out' without coercion? A rare gift indeed. "It might help, actually, talking to someone who's been there, done that. I'll think about it."

He finds himself pinned with a sharp look as the elderly Vulcan pauses, head tilted. "I have never discussed with specificity those events, with either you or my younger counterpart, Jim. How, precisely, did you become aware of them?"

"Uh…" He squints, thinking. Well, that's actually a good question. He just sort of…knows. But it's not like he can really tell the guy that without sounding more not-quite-all-there than he is, so he settles for a statement that is actually true, just has nothing to do with this. "I kind of…got glimpses of stuff I probably wasn't supposed to see, in that mind meld. On Delta Vega."

Spock looks highly alarmed, and not a little mortified.

"It's cool," he hastens to add, because honestly it is, regardless of how it had seemed at the time; from what he's read on Vulcan culture it means that Spock trusts him absolutely, to be willing to do such a thing with a human. And obviously, in another lifetime, it had meant far more than he even realizes.

"You have always been far too disregarding of your own well-being, Jim, in any universe," the ambassador finally says, with an air of resigned weariness.

"One of my many talents." He grins over the blanket as Spock shakes his head fondly, dims the lights, and leaves him alone. "Night."

If he lies awake for another two hours, uneasy in the creeping darkness and its hidden whispers, before he surrenders and finally lights the glow-cell on the corner shelf, well. After what he's done, the universe can owe him a freaking night-light.

* * *

He, Spock, and Bones are chilling in Ambassador Spock's shaded courtyard the next morning after breakfast, when it happens. (His Spock had looked hilariously scandalized to find that his elder counterpart called it this human anachronism instead of ‘the morning meal,’ to which Jim just rolled his eyes and shoved the rest of the very scant supply of plant-based bacon into his mouth before Bones could see.) The elder Spock had left them there with cold beverages and went to water his gardens, a task Jim has zero interest in and apparently wasn't a good enough actor to fake, much to the old Vulcan's amusement.

Bones is grilling him about how he slept last night (someone's a big Vulcan tattle-tale) and Spock is trying his dead level best not to look concerned and like he's eavesdropping even though it's obvious he's both, and Jim is counting to ten so that he doesn't drop-kick that medical tricorder out of Bones's hand because seriously, he's not dying anymore, they need to cut him a fricking break – when a sudden, deep peal of thunder fairly shakes the house and even rumbles a little in the ground beneath their feet.

Bones swears and the tricorder chirps impertinently, scans interrupted by the start they all gave at the unexpected sound.

"Wow."

"Indeed." Spock steps to the edge of the awning and peers up at the sky, a dark shade of green-gray that makes the early morning seem like late evening. "It would seem the Ambassador's predictions regarding an impending storm were accurate."

"'S it gonna rain, you think? Or we just gonna get a lot of noise?"

Another, even more impressive, clap of thunder fairly deafens them; but what's weird, is he hasn't seen any lightning. Must be too high in the atmosphere? Meteorology isn't a subject he has ever been interested in.

"It doesn't feel like rain," he remarks, draining his water glass. At Spock's look, he shrugs. "What. It doesn't. You live in the Midwest long enough, you can tell when it's going to rain, the air just feels different. We play softball in tornado weather, dude."

"You'd better comm your girlfriend and tell her to stay in town if it does pour, though," Bones comments. "These guys probably have no idea how to deal with heavy rainfall and flash floods. I doubt they've even seen one before."

Spock raises an eyebrow. "Nyota is quite capable of making such decisions for herself, Doctor. My advising her to do the obvious would only insult her. Furthermore, as she will not be finished with the seminar until –"

Another clap of thunder, this one louder than before; but this time, it's accompanied by a searing, blinding flash of lightning that lights up the grayish landscape for miles around.

"Annnnnd we're done here," Bones announces, scrambling for his equipment with alacrity. "Inside, Jim."

"Aw, Bones! I love storms!"

"And you're sittin' underneath a lightning rod, genius. This courtyard is the Ambassador's transmission zone for transporter coordinates and comms channels. Inside. I'll go make sure the old man's on his way in too, that watering can he was holding was made of metal."

"But –"

And because their lives have to singlehandedly prove Murphy's law still alive and kicking quite vigorously, that's when it hits. The flash is so bright it blinds him for a moment, and he windmills frantically, trying to keep his balance. He hears Bones's yelp be drowned out by the most enormous clap of thunder yet, followed rapidly by another flash and boom almost simultaneously – the storm's literally right on top of them.

And then –

It stops.

The thunder, the wind, the lightning, everything. It all just…dies down, within the space of a few seconds. The wind trails off, the lightning vanishes, the tingle in the air fades, the rolling of the thunder offers up a few last distant rumbles and then goes radio silence.

The freaking _sun_ pokes through a thinning cloud barrier.

Seriously, is the planet cursed or something?

"Uh…is it just me, or –"

"That was not natural," Spock interrupts flatly.

"Ya think!" Bones gesticulates wildly with the tricorder, narrowly missing Jim's left eyeball. "What in the name of science is going _on_ on this planet?"

He's about to point out that they've encountered enough _non_ -science weirdness in their travels to necessitate at least six separate regulations on Starfleet's books just courtesy of the _Enterprise_ alpha crew, but he hasn't even opened his mouth when an almighty crash sounds from somewhere behind the house.

He turns worried eyes toward the other two, and as one they start running.

The Ambassador's house isn't large, but he has a decent-sized courtyard and little patches of what are likely agricultural experiments, so it takes about a minute to round the house and weave through the stone-dotted path to the back, where he'd been supposedly watering his primary garden, a task done manually with old-fashioned implements since that particular commodity is scarce on a desert planet.

Said watering can appears to have been discarded carelessly on the ground as they round the corner – metal against flagstone likely the crash they heard – with the remains of its contents spilling unheeded into the sandy soil. Jim is unfortunately the last of the three to arrive, due to the fact that he can't catch his breath in diminished lung capacity and still hasn't gotten any muscle tone back yet, so he skids to a stop about eight seconds behind Spock, nearly slamming into his back because for some reason he's just stopped ramrod-straight in the middle of the road and for pity's sake, warn a guy, geez.

"Is he okay? What's going on?" he manages between gasps for breath, giving Spock a little shove out of the way. Without looking back, Spock moves slightly to the side, allowing him to edge up beside him, and he halts on the spot, staring with wide eyes.

"What…"

"It would appear, Captain," Spock says slowly, "that this was no ordinary atmospheric disturbance."

"You're telling me." The figure wearing a weirdly outdated approximation of an admiral’s dress maroons glances around him in what looks like genuine surprise. "I hadn't the faintest idea that would actually work."


	11. Chapter Eleven + Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And here it ends, folks. Hopefully I’ve covered this with at least as much credibility as time-traveling with humpback whales by guesstimated slingshot maneuvers around the sun, or being able to be shoved out of a warp bubble with a hull breach by the _Vengeance_ and not instantly be shredded into atoms. Theoretical science FTW.
> 
> (also, obviously, we're going to just pretend that Old Spock didn't die in _Beyond_ , because that would be awful after all this trouble.)
> 
> Thank you for reading!

**Chapter Eleven**

"I can't say that's a trip I ever want to make again in this lifetime, but at least it was ultimately a success. Nicely done, kid."

"Uh." He strangles out a sound somewhere between _hello, nutjob_ and _this is too much Weird for one uncaffeinated morning, okay? Okay_.

Bad enough he’s still trying to cope with being dead, but to have someone from his coma-dreams poof out of nowhere into real life? It just now occurs to him, maybe those dreams weren’t exactly dreams, after all. And now he really, really wishes he could actually _remember_ more than snatches of them, because this is just Too Much Weird even for their lives.

"Will you _shut up,_ all of you?" Bones demands from somewhere off to the side, and for the first time he realizes his friend isn't just spectating here, he's running a medical scanner over their poor host, who although he's white as a ghost is starting to look less like he's about to pass out, more like he's about to nerve-pinch Bones for his hovering. "Ain't enough that you scare a guy almost into a heart attack, y'all have to stand there jawing about it for ten minutes afterwards?"

"Doctor," the elderly Vulcan remonstrates with a patient sigh. "I assure you, that is not –"

"You hush. No one asked you."

Both eyebrows hit the elder Spock's hairline. Their newcomer snickers briefly, until he's fixed with a look of pure evil that obviously rings a bell somewhere in history past, because his amusement dies a painful death under the weight of very present guilt.

"Oh, I'll deal with you in a minute," Bones hisses, brandishing a hypospray with a menacing gesture that Jim is highly grateful is not directed at him. For once.

"Is he okay, Bones?" Geez, if the poor guy really does have heart trouble, dropping a dead man out of the sky on him probably didn't do him any favors.

Spock – the old one – gifts him with an entirely human eyeroll.

"No thanks to Captain Dramatic over there, yeah, I think so."

Hm, yeah, now that Jim can see better, those are captain’s stripes on that bizarre uniform, not admiral’s. What on earth is he doing in that color, then?

A scowl, and the tricorder is returned to its holster. "But you better take it easy, you hear me?"

"I believe the observation team on Delta Seven can hear you in orbit, Doctor."

Jim laughs, and then promptly disappears behind Spock – his Spock – as Bones turns that evil eye his direction. Spock sighs and simply steps away, leaving him exposed and helpless before the onslaught of righteous anger. Some First Officer, abandoning him to this sudden and present danger.

"And _you_ ," a bony finger jabs into their newcomer’s chest, whereupon the man's eyes widen comically, "you better be glad I'm in a forgiving mood, today. Also I probably can't do anything to you without disruptin' a timestream somewhere, am I right? Or are you _not_ , a much older version of this young pain in my ass?"

"Hey!"

"You gonna deny it? I’d know that look anywhere."

Jim scowls, crosses his arms over his chest. "Screw you, Bones."

"In your dreams, darlin'. Now, as for you?"

"Who, me?"

Heh, Bones is having a field day with two Jim Kirks to yell at. Jim scoots around him with well-practiced ease and skids to a stop in front of the older version of his First, sand flying in his wake. Frowning as the dark eyes flicker with just a hint of disbelief from him to his own counterpart, currently a few meters away and on the receiving end of a medical tantrum to end all tantrums, he notes with relief that the old Vulcan appears to be regaining some color in his features.

"Dude, you okay?" he asks, genuinely concerned. "And hello, heart issues? Would have been good to know!"

The Ambassador sighs tolerantly, and a small smile tugs at the corner of his lips. "Your Doctor McCoy is as overly protective as mine ever was, Jim. I assure you, nothing so dangerous or so drastic is in my immediate future. However, I am not the young officer I was; and this…development, is something of a shock."

"That is a colossal understatement," Spock's voice sounds from behind them, and Jim turns to see him approaching with what looks like wariness, skirting around the two figures in the middle of the pathway. "I must confess to being completely at a loss to explain the event."

"That makes two of us, _pi'shal._ "

"Literally," Jim interjects with a smirk, elbowing the both of them before he sets off toward the escalating argument. "Yo, Bones!" He gives the man a shove, knocking him off-balance with a cheerful grin. "Leave the poor guy alone, will you? You know our Spock's never been forthcoming about his health, so how would he know about the old one's?"

"Any _moron_ would know you don't just drop a _dead man_ into a room with a hundred-plus-year-old member of _any_ species and expect 'em to not go into shock!"

"Annnd that's as nice as he's going to get," he sighs, giving his counterpart a pointed look over the irate physician's head. "Look, no offense, but you're a major problem."

Kirk's eyes sparkle with amusement. "So I see. I take it, then, that your timeline's reset successfully, and you can't remember anything?"

He squints at the man suspiciously. "What."

"I presume that's a _yes_."

"That's a _I got no idea what in the seven moons of Orion you're talking about, and this conversation's getting progressively weirder, thanks_. Ow! Bones, what the –"

"You're sunburning already." The hypospray disappears into a pocket, and Bones ignores his glare and dramatic neck-rub of indignant affront. "Time to move this shindig indoors."

"Spock?" Both look up at him, and he waves a hand vaguely in direction of the younger. "Mine. Let's give them a few minutes before we start the third degree, yeah?"

Spock blinks at him cluelessly.

"Come _on_ , Spock. Geez." He gives his First a tug on the arm that he never would have been able to get away with pre-Khan, but he's enjoying the new physical tolerance Spock seems to have for him now and he's _so_ going to milk it as long as he can without getting nerve-pinched. Bones is already halfway back around the house, and so he follows suit, dutifully pulling Spock with him. "Nosy Vulcan."

"Captain, your assumptions are erroneous and your physical contact inappropriate. Furthermore –"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, illogical and annoying and human and you can write a report about it later, Commander. Now move your ass."

* * *

For a moment he stares after the bizarre trio as they retreat back around the house, his mind still boggled at the odd familiarity they share; and for the first time, seeing just how very different, is this version of their quite unique tri-une bond, in this wilder, darker universe. He can see now, the impressive strength that ties them together far below what looks like a very casual surface, and he can only speculate at the brutal events which likely forged that foundation in fire and blood.

And then it hits him like a sonic hovercraft, the fact that he finally is as much a part of this harsher, darker world, as they are – there is no going back, now. He took the plunge without looking back, without hesitating, without regretting his actions; but now, he must learn somehow to live with the consequences of that _far better thing which he has done_ , to misquote Dickens. He is not a man easily frightened, but it is a daunting prospect.

How has Spock managed to stay sane in this world, watching from afar while a group of children – very talented, no doubt very brave, and very resourceful children, but still _children_ – take their places in the galaxy, among the stars? How long has it been, since Spock left their own universe, his last moments there spent knowing he had failed utterly in a mission which had taken years of undercover work on Romulus. All that, gone in an instant, through no fault of his own?

What has he missed, not just here, but in the decades lost in their own universe after he was lost to the Nexus's dangerous thrall?

 _QeyllS_ , he doesn't even know when they lost their own McCoy.

Mind still reeling, he sits slowly, heavily, on the bench beside the silent figure of the one being who always knew him best. Adrenaline can cover a multitude of weaknesses, and now reality is creeping in. Pulling himself together is not as easy as it sounds.

"You all right?" he asks softly, after a few awkward seconds.

A quiet noise of disbelief. "An impossible question to answer completely, Admiral."

"Incompletely, then. And why on earth would you call me _that_ , did they re-award the rank posthumously?"

Spock casts a glance sideways at him, as if still unable to quite look him in the eyes for fear he'll vanish if they make contact.

“There was discussion of it. I…fell out of contact with Starfleet, some months after your disappearance, due to the nature of my undercover activities on Romulus. I actually do not know.”

“Gods, I hope not. We were pretentious enough as it was.”

“It would have been well-deserved, given what we presumed was your death being in the service of the Enterprise-B.” Spock’s words are almost too calm. “As to the events on Veridian III, I cannot attest.”

"No, I don’t suppose you could.” He sighs. “You could, however, at least act as if you’re pleased to see me, all things considered.”

“You are well aware of Vulcan nature, sir. To expect more than that is a futile exercise.”

“You’re not talking to that smart-ass kid, Spock. I know you better than that. And there was a time, when you were able to admit it.”

“While that may have been true, I do not believe you are an expert on the subject any longer.” The words are still far, far too calm. “Time changes us all.”

“It does,” he replies slowly. “But I doubt it changes a scientist so much that he refuses to hear all the facts before coming to a conclusion. Are you not even going to give me that courtesy, Spock?”

"What new facts have you to add to those of which I am already aware?"

“Plenty! Aren’t you curious about why I’m here?”

There’s an oddly human sigh, as if Vulcan control is just too weary to maintain the pretense any longer. “After this long? I do not believe the particulars are of any practical knowledge, no.”

"You think I _chose_ any of this? Whatever _this_ , is?"

"Chosen or not, it has been over _ninety years_. Jim." The sudden, almost blindingly sharp pain in those few words is so piercing it is almost physical, and it makes all things obvious in a second. "One does not simply resume where one left, after that length of time."

"No, I suppose not." Gods, that’s practically a human’s entire lifetime. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and slowly drags his hands down over his face. "So where does that leave us, then?"

"I do not know." Spock looks away, into the distance of a sun-streaked desert morning.

"Do you…want me to leave? The property, or the planet? I'll not be offended if you need space, Spock, or time for that matter. God knows you've been kind enough to do the same for me under far less traumatic circumstances."

"That is unnecessary."

"What, then?"

"I do not know."

"That, I highly doubt, old friend."

"You appear to be laboring under the impression that I am subject to the same human societal and emotional requirements as yourself."

"Those lines might have worked on me ninety years ago, Spock, but we both know better now. Try again."

Amusement fades into weariness. Spock sighs, an all-too-human, almost painful sound in the stillness of the morning breeze. "What do you wish from me?"

"I don't wish anything, Spock, just…be yourself again, for pity's sake."

Dark eyes flicker sharply to his face for the first time, and he can see the uncertainty there. "Jim…you do not yet grasp the enormity of the time which has been lost in the intervening years. I am not who I was, nor will I ever again be the being you remember."

"When have I ever demanded you be something other than exactly who you are? Even when you went running scared back to Vulcan after that five-year mission crashed and burned spectacularly at the very end…did I _ever_ ask you to return to us – to me? When we were stranded there after your _fal-tor-pan_ , did I ever demand you be more human in your refusion – no matter how much it hurt that you didn’t even know why I was still around for _weeks_?"

"You did not."

"Then speculate, Science Officer. Why would I begin doing that now?"

"I…do not know."

Spock's repeated uncertainty would be almost endearing in another situation, but now…now, it only produces a sense of sadness; for it's been far too long. He doesn't know the man – the Vulcan – sitting in front of him anymore. Never, from the first night they ate together in Officers' Mess aboard the original _Enterprise_ so many, many years ago, has their conversation ever felt so stilted, so unnatural, so awkward; even after Spock's _fal-tor-pan_ , when Spock could barely remember his own name and certainly had no idea he even was half-human.

Nine decades; half a Vulcan's lifetime, and more than two-thirds of a human's. They've been apart for twice as long as they knew each other, before. That will change a man irrevocably, quite possibly into an entirely different person. And while some part of his soul already feels far more whole than it ever did in the artificial dream-world of the Nexus…he is still, despite all this, looking at a complete stranger.

And if he can still read Spock's rigid posture and refusal to make eye contact as he used to? It's clear that Spock is likely feeling the same.

Well.

All right, then.

He stands, refastens the top button of his jacket (makes a mental note to discard the outdated uniform at the first opportunity, as he is not immune to the stares of those kids a few minutes ago), straightens the braided sleeves. Clears his throat.

Spock looks up, curiosity sparking in his eyes.

He takes a breath, and hopes muscle memory can make a decent approximation of the _ta'al_ he has not had cause to use in decades. "Ambassador, my name is Captain James T. Kirk, of the United Federation of Planets. In a…neighboring universe, of yours. I've heard a great deal about you, Mr. Spock."

Spock's lips twitch suspiciously. "Have you indeed, Captain."

"Oh, yes. I think we're going to be quite good friends, you and I."

"And upon what premise, do you base this exceedingly illogical supposition?" Spock asks, eyebrow arched.

"Let's just say, Mr. Spock…that however illogical it may be, I still believe in destiny."

"A most capricious human construct, devised in an attempt to explain the inexplicable constants of the universe."

"And yet, here we are."

"Indeed. A…fact, which I am yet finding difficult to believe."

"You and me both. I can't say the surprise is an entirely unwelcome one, though. Can you?"

Spock's eyes glint. "Not entirely, no."

"You are as beneficial to my ego as ever, Mr. Spock."

He would swear that's an entirely human eyeroll, but after only a moment of hesitation in which he waits with infinite patience, Spock finally accepts both the olive branch and the hand up from the bench with a graceful nod.

"Now, shall we join those young idiots who aren't doing a very good job of eavesdropping around the corner, and I'll explain just how events unfolded, leading me here?"

* * *

_"Well, this is all kinds of awkward."_

_"You're telling me, kid."_

_"Seriously. I know Bones gets pissy when I don't eat a salad once a week at least, but, well…he’s got a point."_

_"Not all of us apparently have the blood and metabolism of a psychotic super-villain in our veins, kid. I can see why your McCoy walked around looking like he wanted to kill you at least once an hour."_

_"Nah, he looks like that at everybody. I'm nothing special."_

_"Your crew appears to think otherwise. Have you any idea how very lucky you are?"_

_"They're a little biased. And yeah, I do. Also, I got your ship like ten years before you did, so where do you get off calling me kid, old man."_

_"Oh, I have plenty of other things I’d prefer to call you, but the Captain’s code prevents that."_

_"Well, I would prefer we both get out of here and not have to see each other again except at family reunions on New Vulcan, what do you say?"_

_"Hm, and here I thought Spock was just being loyal when he said you were actually a genius."_

* * *

"Wait, wait. So…when you injected me with Khan's blood-serum thing, you brought back the wrong one? How does that even _happen_!"

"If we had been able to answer that, events would have unfolded very differently from the sequence which apparently did," Spock points out patiently. Uhura has to hand it to him, he's showing remarkable restraint with the whole affair. Given the shocking events of the morning, which she had missed entirely due to being in the city attending a linguistics conference at the NVSA, she is surprised that he appears _less_ stressed now than he has for the last few days. Maybe the double influence is good for him. Either that or he's just feeling less threatened now that his old counterpart has a new focus of attention. It's kind of cute, and kind of ridiculous.

She herself, can hardly believe the insanity of their predicament: but here it sits, in all its crazy glory. The elder Kirk's story has been somewhat far-fetched, but not impossible; and it does explain matters to their satisfaction. Surely nobody would make up something that strange; it's just a shame none of them can remember any of it. Well, other than Jim's bizarre coma-dreams, which apparently were just bleed-through from this Nexus-thing. Or just Jim being a weirdo, which is equally possible.

"How do you resurrect the wrong dude, Bones! Come on!"

"Was I ever that whiny?" Kirk whispers behind his hand, and from the Ambassador's other side McCoy chokes on his coffee.

"I heard that!"

"My God, you're such a drama queen. This ain't about you, Jim." Leonard's eyes roll so hard his entire head moves. "Not like we were _trying_ to reboot you as the not-exactly-new-and-improved version."

"I feel vaguely insulted."

"I'm a doctor, not a cheerleader."

“While that’s a visual we would all love to see, Leonard, can we get back to business?”

She turns to the two eldest of their small group. The Ambassador appears to be doing nothing more than just watching them in contented silence – watching his newly resurrected captain the most, obviously, but she can see the play of amusement and fondness on the old Vulcan's features as they interact together as a crew. Kirk seems to be oblivious of the attention, which is kind of adorable, and she shakes her head with a smile, leaning forward to interject.

"So, we get the alternate timeline and reset part of the story, Admiral. But I don't understand how you are here, in this timeline, if what you say is true. Your shuttle broke apart on the edge of the Nexus?"

"It did, Lieutenant. All according to plan. Sort of." She raises an eyebrow, and he chuckles. "Did you pick that up from him, or is it an entirely innate habit?" At her narrowed look, he just moves on, grinning. "Your own captain's plan was a good one, but it was a massive risk; and, it had no failsafe. Added to that, is the fact that no matter what the outcome, there still needed to be one of us within the Nexus when the events on Veridian III occurred."

"Yeah, speaking of…" Jim gestures up-and-down at his counterpart, quizzically. "I'm hoping you didn't just bail on everyone in your own timeline."

Kirk smiles. "No, I didn't. And thanks to you, kid, I didn't end up being trapped in there a second time, either. A little unconventional maneuvering of the timelines and universal laws, but your crazy plan apparently worked. Something tells me you were hell on your Academy instructors."

"You have no idea," Spock says dryly.

* * *

_"How are you not being affected by this place?"_

_"Not a clue. I didn't know I was_ supposed _to be affected until Uhura showed up and said she'd been able to change things in her surroundings. And if what you're saying is true…"_

_"You should have lost your free will a long time ago, kid. No way should you still be remembering your crew and life before this, especially this vividly, or be this unhappy, if the thing's working properly on you. It should have given you whatever you wanted, long ago."_

_"It's almost like it doesn't even realize I'm here."_

_"Well…maybe it doesn't. Maybe it doesn't just exist off of positive energy, maybe there has to be an element of physical matter involved as well. Since I had your body back in your own timeline – you said you've been a disembodied type of soul here? – then perhaps it never actually registered your presence. And that would explain why you kept your own memories and free will without interference – as well as why it never seemed to listen to your heart's desires, keeping you in mine instead. It literally didn't realize you – or rather a version of me – was still here."_

_"But you're back here now, so why aren't you affected?"_

_"I…sort of made a run at it in one of the_ Enterprise _'s shuttlecrafts, and didn't quite make it through the energy field."_

_"You what!"_

_"Kid, you're about to reset this timeline and you're taking a hell of a risk leaving this place with someone else's soul running around in your occupied body. And when you do reset, there's no guarantee that I would return here, divided from that body when the timeline tears apart; and I have to be here, in 2371, in my timeline, or the_ Enterprise _and the Veridian star system burn. It's not by any means a sure thing, but at least your odds of success are improved this way with your body no longer occupied by the wrong tenant, so to speak. We can’t take chances with parallel universalism."_

_"You're an idiot."_

_"Perhaps. I've certainly been called worse."_

_"Spock is probably having a cow right now."_

_"I'm hoping you get on with it, so he doesn't have to for much longer."_

_"So you're just going to, what, wait here for the next however many decades, until this Captain Picard shows up?"_

_"You have a better idea?"_

_"Actually, yeah."_

_"I'm listening."_

* * *

"Fascinating." The elder Spock muses, glancing thoughtfully between them.

"It's damn creepy, is what it is," McCoy mutters. He drains the last of his coffee and looks mournfully into the empty cup. "Two of you. God help us all."

Jim laughs. "Seriously, I came up with this?"

"You did. Frankly, I was a bit skeptical about it working – but at that point, it was a good plan, worthy of a risk. And never let it be said I was unwilling to take a risk."

"So…because your physical body had to still be in the Nexus somewhere, you gambled on the idea that it was in there, still fully functioning with some kind of, what – copied mindset?" she asks incredulously.

"A fairly solid gamble, Lieutenant, one which could easily be proven or disproven. It did take a few decades to finally find my copy in that mess, however."

"Decades?" It had only been ten days here; she can't imagine searching for that long, alone, in the faint hope of eventual escape from a benign but lonely prison.

Kirk shrugs, though she can see the traces of desperation still lingering in his eyes. "It's strange, seeing yourself as nothing more than a sort of shade, or doppelganger, let me tell you. But I finally found it – him – whatever, and knew then that it was safe to leave. Problem was, we had to then wait for the gateway, so to speak, to open again, since the timeline had been reset to the seventy-eight-year opening in my own universe. That took quite a few more years."

She sees the Ambassador pale slightly, at the realization.

"It's okay," Kirk adds, smiling slightly, and lays a gentle hand on the elderly Vulcan's arm. "I had to figure out how to get the Nexus to conjure me up a second physical body anyway. Rome wasn't built in a day, you know – neither could that be."

Jim whistles. "So, after all that time, when the thing finally opened again, you just, what…slipped out along with your double, who left with Captain Picard? You just left the Nexus into our time and space, instead of yours?"

"Mm-hm." The admiral sits back, looking extremely satisfied. "I'm a bit surprised Picard didn't notice something was a little off, but then again he'd never met me so I suppose he had no way of knowing my soul, so to speak, was elsewhere, and he was just talking to a shadow of me. So there you have it, gentlemen. And you have my thanks, _Captain_ ," and the emphasis is entirely void of sarcasm, "for your quite inspired plan."

"Agreed," the Ambassador echoes softly.

"Huh." Jim blinks, taking this in. "Wish I could remember it. I mean, I have a few bits and pieces, but I thought that was just the cryo-storage talking."

"No wonder your readings were all over the place during those two weeks, you were bouncin' all over the universe inside your head. Can't even stay comatose like a normal person, can you."

"Leonard!" Just because they _can_ laugh about it now, doesn't mean they _should_. She knows humor is both Jim and Leonard's method of coping under stress, but the last three weeks have been murder on Spock's state of mind, and he can't fall back on humor to relieve the pressure like a human can.

Case in point, the minor meltdown happening in three, two –

"Doctor, I find your levity both inappropriate and insensitive."

"Like you would know insensitivity if it bit you on the ass, you –"

" _Enough_."

She starts in surprise, because that's a tone she hasn't heard in months – long before that disastrous mission on Nibiru, long before Jim started doubting himself and all of them. That particular command edge is diamond-sharp enough to cut glass, and she's personally witnessed it slice the most belligerent of alien races to proverbial ribbons by the time he's through. It's a rare thing, for it to be turned on one of them – and when it happens, the entire crew takes note. And usually runs for cover.

"Spock, walk with me." Blue eyes meet hers over the table, and she nods in silent support. Also, no way does she want to draw his attention right now, not when he looks like that. "Bones…look, I'll be back, but just chill for a minute, okay."

McCoy has the grace to look slightly abashed, but not in any way apologetic, and scowls after the retreating figures as they leave the room.

"I am given to understand the last three weeks have put your crew under immense stress, Doctor."

The elder Spock's gentle observation produces a snort of disbelief. "And here I thought you people were geniuses. The last three weeks have been _hell_ , Ambassador."

"What exactly happened, up there?" Kirk asks quietly. "If it was anything like it was for us, it was likely the worst experience of your life, I'm guessing."

"You're not wrong. Kid's makin' me gray before my time."

She can see the grief, still present but well-hidden, lurking in the man's expression – it's never really left, though it fades a little every day that goes by and Jim continues to heal, continues to become more of a brat in retaliation for being hovered over.

"You didn't know what he was planning, then."

"You think I'd have let him go through with it if I had?!"

"That likely is why he did not inform you, Doctor."

"That, and the fact he probably couldn't stand to say goodbye to you," Kirk adds, glancing away for a moment. He finally stands abruptly and walks across the room, facing away from them.

She sees the Ambassador's eyes close in silent shared grief and sympathy.

Oh.

Well, crap.

She hadn't thought about that – probably none of them had. She's not sure Leonard even realizes just how integral a part he is, to whatever weird platonic-soulmate thing Spock has going on with Jim. She needs to make sure Spock gets Jim's head back in the game and tells the poor man that, if they haven't made it clear in the past, because no way are they going back into space with unfinished drama. Nobody has time for that, in this business; if recent events have reiterated anything to them, it's that life is far too short.

Thankfully, McCoy is no idiot, and he seems to realize abruptly the reason for their elder counterparts' reactions – he shifts in his seat awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck, and glances at her with a look of clear helplessness.

She sighs silently, but takes pity on the poor guy, since Jim and Spock have abandoned him to hash out whatever drama they're dealing with now.

Clearing her throat, she waits until she has the attention of both of their parallel counterparts and then offers them a disarming smile.

"So, Admiral – we know Ambassador Spock here quite well, and now we've gotten to meet you, but tell me. Did your Doctor McCoy get sweet and sappy after a fifth of bourbon? Because ours does. Let me tell you about the last shore leave we took before we came back to earth…"

* * *

"Look, what is going on with you?"

Spock won't look at him, which means he's either embarrassed about his little catfight or just flat pissed off (the face is the same, no help there), so he's forced to rely on old-fashioned guesswork and a little innate obnoxiousness to push his First into spilling whatever is obviously _not_ -bothering him.

"I know this whole thing's got to be some serious amounts of crazy, but you're used to there being two of you around at least, and anyway you've been acting weird for days. What gives?"

Spock's exhale is as controlled as it is obviously a bid for patience.

"Come on, Spock. You can tell me what's bothering you, you know that right?"

"Nothing, Captain." And yeah, that might fly if he wasn't standing straighter than he does on the Bridge, hands firmly clasped behind his back and staring unseeing out at the New Vulcan landscape. Nothing out there is that interesting.

"Don't lie to me."

"I am not."

"I may not be that old man in there but I can tell that much, at least. You are, and I want to know why."

A dry desert wind picks up suddenly, whipping about them in a burning gust of hot air that threatens to tear the oxygen from his lungs. Spock's hair ruffles slightly before settling.

He remains silent, staring at the horizon.

"Did I do something?"

They've hardly talked, actually, since he woke up, but it's entirely possible he said something idiotic without meaning to, that's a habit hard to break after years of dedicated practice. He hasn't ticked off Uhura, to his knowledge…

Surely Spock's not still holding a grudge about what went down just before Khan attacked Starfleet HQ that first time? They haven't heard about new postings yet, but he can't see the powers that be splitting them up again, not after what went down between the _Vengeance_ and the _Enterprise_. Unless Spock wants them split up, and is just trying to figure out how to tell him.

Despite the scorching heat, he suddenly feels cold and sick.

"You're gonna have to help me out here, Spock."

They've meandered through Old Spock's various gardens and the small courtyard, and now find themselves on a sort of craggy stone ledge overlooking a desert-like expanse, which appears to be the separation between outlying estate homes and the distant central city of the Vulcan colony. Jim briefly wonders how different things might have been, if he'd ever had the chance to visit Vulcan when it wasn't under attack, when he wasn't under suspicion, and spares a moment of reflection and silence for the missed opportunities, the loss of life.

Spock stares out over the sandy plains for a moment before seating himself on the ground in what Jim recognizes as a basic meditation position; a not quite nervous habit, and an indication that he's not exactly avoiding answering Jim's question, just trying to get up the mental preparation to do so.

That's not a good sign, so he falls silent and just follows Spock's example, for once letting the silence do the talking for him.

It's a good twenty minutes before the quiet is broken by something other than the whistling of the wind, or the occasional distant bird-call from far overhead in the clear sky.

Spock finally shifts slightly on the ground, and turns to look at him. His eyes are troubled.

"I am uncertain where to begin, Captain. Far too many things have happened in recent weeks, which have…contributed to the deterioration of my emotional control."

This is dangerous territory. "Well. To some extent, I think the cause might be sufficient," he replies cautiously. "We can't really seem to catch a break, Spock."

To his credit, Spock doesn't even bother to pretend ignorance of the expression. "While this may in part be true, it does not excuse my recent lapses in control, Captain. Not the least of which, was done in full view of many of your Bridge crew shortly after your death."

"I'm pretty sure none of them blinked an eye, Spock. And I read the reports, you know. Not even Giotto cared about what condition you brought Khan back in."

"That does not excuse the breaking of regulation in the treatment of a Federation prisoner."

"Maybe. But you're not going to see me or anyone else complaining about it. That can't possibly be the only contributing factor here."

"You are correct."

"So…?"

Spock looks away for a moment, across the rolling sandy plains. "I am…experiencing difficulties in rebuilding my mental shields," he finally says, with obvious reluctance.

"That sounds serious."

"It is." Dark eyes flick to his for a moment, what looks like shame hiding within them. "In the interests of full disclosure, I should inform you that it is considered to be a medical emergency in the Vulcan culture."

He sits up straight at that, very much alarmed, because this should _not_ be the first he's hearing of his primary command officer experiencing a serious medical emergency, recent events or no. "And you didn't say anything to Bones about this?"

"He has had…other concerns, of late."

"Not an excuse. How bad is it?"

"It is…manageable. But an increasing inconvenience."

"In other words, you're miserable and we're making it worse."

Spock almost honest-to-god-scowls at him, only proving the point.

He sighs, runs a hand through his hair, noting absently the need for a haircut after so many days spent invalided in Starfleet Medical. Or maybe he'll let it grow out a bit, maybe change is good for all of them. "Okay, explain to me exactly what this means, Spock. Remember I'm not Nyota, I don't have all this inside information on your culture."

"Nyota does not have this information; it is a private matter."

"Uh, pretty sure she's not going to see it like that if you're telling _me_."

"You misunderstand. She is aware of my difficulties; however, in this area she is unable to render assistance. Therefore, the matter is an entirely private one and there is little point in discussing it with her without reminding her of what I believe you humans call a 'sore subject.'"

"Okay, so if you aren't going to really talk about it with us because it's too private, can you at least tell me when the problems started?"

"The difficulties first began shortly after the night of Khan's initial attack on Starfleet Headquarters."

He swallows, sharp and choking like a heated knife-point. The pain of that night is still razor-edged, since for him it's only been days since he awoke to a world recovering from that attack. Everyone else had had a couple of weeks to become accustomed to that world, and he had only just fully realized it. Chris Pike had already been laid to rest by the time he woke up, and that had been a heartbreaking discovery, two days after waking from his coma.

And Spock…Spock had mind-melded with the guy as he was dying. No wonder he was having problems.

"You think you messed yourself up, mind-melding with Pike when he died?" he asks bluntly.

He doesn't think Spock was totally submerged, so to speak, in a full-on mind-meld, just based on the fact that he's a Starfleet officer. As such, he would never make himself completely vulnerable during a crisis like that; but he had to have still been deep enough to get a good dose of whatever had been going on in Pike's head at the time.

Spock's look of complete shock reminds him that his First has no idea that he even knows more than colloquially what a mind-meld is, and so is probably a little freaked right now at the idea that his society's very private, almost religious practices have been leaked to an outworlder.

"The idea had occurred to me, but I am more interested to know how it occurred to you, Captain."

"I'm not trying to be insensitive here, Spock, but…I know what it's like, to die, now." He clears his throat, looks away for a minute, because those eyes are far too perceptive and it will become very obvious very quickly, that he hasn't dealt with this yet himself. "If he was feeling even half as – as scared, as I was? That'd mess anybody up, even getting it second-hand." He looks down, and _damn it_ , his hands are shaking again. "God, I _hope_ he wasn't as scared as I was, Spock. He deserved a lot better."

"Fear of death is a natural part of life, Jim."

"Maybe." He shakes his head, hands clenched before him. "But we are starship captains – we're supposed to be a little braver than that."

"That supposition is inaccurate. The test of a starship captain, as you so… _uniquely_ demonstrated just prior to your own commencement, is in how one faces that fear, not in the complete elimination of it."

He snorts a laugh. "That's probably as close to an apology as I'm ever going to get from you for that mess, isn't it?"

"One does not apologize where it is not warranted."

"Uh-huh." He grins, looking sideways at the calm features of his First. "Why is it you're so much better at taking care of me than you are at taking care of yourself, Spock?"

Spock's pale features color slightly. "That is also inaccurate," he says quietly.

He frowns. "Please tell me you aren't blaming yourself for the willful and knowledgeable actions of another sentient being, Spock, because that's highly illogical."

"Doctor McCoy informs me that despite knowing such facts, this…feeling, is natural."

"Yeah, well. He's dealing with his own survivor's guilt right now, he doesn't need to be adding to yours. Spock, I knew damn well what I was doing and I did it anyway – you and I both know the ship was dropping straight out of the sky and that was literally the only thing that could be done."

"I am aware of this."

"But it doesn't make it any better, does it." He sighs, rubs wearily at the skin around his eyes, trying to stave off the headache. "I could say I'm sorry, but it won't really be true, Spock. I will always choose the ship. I can't make any other decision, it's just not in me."

"I am also aware of this. It is for that very reason I am certain you are the man best suited for the captaincy of the _Enterprise_."

"That mean you're not going to write any more reports behind my back that'll get me demoted again?" Spock looks pained, and he holds up a remonstrative hand. "That's not fair, Spock. I'm sorry."

"Your anger was justified."

"Taking it out on you wasn't. You did exactly what I rely on you to do, Commander – to keep my command decisions in balance – and just because I didn't like it doesn't mean you were in the wrong."

"My judgment was in error, Captain. And however unintentionally, I gave you just cause to doubt my loyalties." The earnestness in the tone is unmistakable, and it eases something inside him he hadn't even realized was lurking in the background, tense and worried. "It will not happen again."

"I've never doubted your loyalty, Spock. Tempering that with trust? That's something we both have to work on, I think."

"That is a fair assessment."

"So. We've established that I'm an idiot, you have emotional PTSD, and we have a long road back to where we were. Where does that leave us?"

Spock steeples his fingers and looks out at the desert. "I do not know."

"You…you aren't asking for a transfer, are you?"

The desperation in his voice is likely very obvious, because Spock's head turns toward him, tilting quizzically. "It was not in my immediate plans, no," he replies, lips quirking in a half-smile.

"Good. That's…good." He blows out a long, relieved breath, and leans back on his hands, head tilted back toward the sun. "I can't do this without you, Spock."

"I doubt that is quite true, but I see no reason to test the hypothesis."

"You know it's been almost two weeks since I woke up, and the idea of even stepping foot into Engineering again still terrifies me so much I wake up at night wanting to lose my dinner?"

"Unfortunately, Lieutenant Uhura informs me that I have subjected her to much the same process the last seven evenings."

"We're a mess, Commander." He shakes his head, grinning ruefully. "Come on, you're the scientist here, Spock. Speculate. How would you suggest we start getting rid of our baggage so we have a chance at landing another ship when Starfleet decides I'm not going to go rogue on them?"

"Lieutenant-Commander Scott informed me this morning that repairs on the _Enterprise_ 's warp core and impulse engines have proceeded to the point of requiring extensive tests and the usual battery of regulatory inspections. Perhaps, upon our return, we may undertake that responsibility ourselves."

"Yeah…yeah, I'd like that. Thanks, Spock."

"You are welcome. Jim."

* * *

**Epilogue**

"So, we probably won't be heading back this way until the end of the mission, unless something catastrophic happens to endanger the planet," he says cheerfully.

Spock takes his remaining bishop with a look of unholy glee. "I believe the humans have an expression – do not jinx us, Captain."

On the vid-screen, his older counterpart snickers, and the Ambassador sighs tolerantly at them both. _"I am pleased to hear your reinstatement was so uneventful, Jim."_

"Yeah, me too."

He frowns at the board. Chess has never been his strong suit. He is smart enough, that's not the issue – he just hasn't ever had the patience for the Long Game like Spock does. Also, there's no way to get creative in chess; it is what it is, no rule-bending, no cheating. His strength in battle is primarily the element of surprise; Spock's, is his ability to foresee every outcome except that one crucial surprise. Together, they make for a game that is either over within ten minutes or that lasts for _two hours_ , as this one has.

"This is the first deep space mission of its kind, it's pretty awesome."

 _"Psst, not that one,"_ his elder self whispers abruptly, as he reaches for a rook.

Spock shoots the screen a deathly glare.

_"Sorry. Ahem. Anyway, my sincere congratulations, kid. Enjoy it while you can – and if you have the choice, don't ever for a second consider letting them boot you off the ship onto desk duty."_

"Well, duh." He moves his queen to a safer position on the lowest tier in resignation to Spock's sweeping victory, obviously fast approaching. "Say, you got any advice for us before we set out, old man? Any particular alien races we should avoid, or planets we should definitely give a fly-by?"

Kirk's eyes light up. "Well, there is –" He breaks off with a short yelp, as if having been suddenly kicked under the table, and turns an accusatory glare at his companion. The elderly Vulcan merely gives him a pointed look until he subsides, muttering to himself.

 _"We have disturbed your timeline enough, young one. This is where that interference ends,"_ the ambassador says, firmly. Jim stifles a laugh as from behind him Kirk lifts a spread hand to his ear, wiggles it and mouths _call me_.

Spock rolls his eyes and shifts a knight into position. "Check. Mate in four, Captain."

"Ughhhhh." He pokes his king into a diagonal move to get away. "Why did I agree to this?"

"I believe this time, because it offered sufficient grounds to excuse you from Doctor McCoy's latest medical examination."

"That would've been less painful. Can I just surrender now and get it over with?"

 _"Yeah, he's definitely not me,"_ Kirk whispers, _sotto voce_ , and the elderly Vulcan half-smiles.

"Screw you, gramps." He tips his king, knowing it's going to piss Spock off, and smirks up at his annoyed First.

Spock turns a pointed look toward the view-screen. "Have you any advice, which might be helpful in dealing with situations involving such unusually frustrating individuals?"

_"Negative."_

_"Nope."_

Jim cackles at the dual expressions of very clear _I plead the fifth_. Then he catches a glimpse of the clock in the corner of the screen, and swears under his breath, turning back to his First.

"Uhura is going to kill me."

Spock's look of dismay is almost hilarious, except Jim's seen Uhura when she's pissed off, and it's majorly hot but majorly scary.

"Blame it on me," he yells after Spock as the guy dashes from the room with as much dignity as possible when he's twenty minutes late for a movie-and-dinner date and basically the entire ship probably knows by now. Good thing they're still on a skeleton crew and not a full complement.

That will come tomorrow, when the rest of them beam or shuttle aboard. In fact, he probably should get going himself, to meet up with Bones for a long-deserved dinner and drink, and also to go over the psych evals for the newcomers. No one else is going to catch him with his pants down like Admiral Marcus did. For every man he lost, he is going to see that another lives, that much he's vowed on Christopher Pike's memory.

He toasts the two figures on his screen with the last dregs of whatever weird herbal tea his first officer had offered him when he arrived an hour ago. "Seriously, though. You guys stay out of trouble while we're gone, yeah?"

 _"Yeah,"_ the elder Spock dead-pans.

He chokes on his drink, and the screen goes dark to the ghostly sound of laughter not quite his own.

He leaves Spock's cabin with less foreboding about the upcoming mission than he has felt since long before the incident with Khan, long before that mission on Nibiru set off a powderkeg of doubt and festering animosity that could easily have destroyed his command chain. For quite a while, he doubted himself and his abilities, for even longer he doubted that his crew had faith in the same. But now?

Now, he has a feeling that the universes – any or all of them – are not quite prepared for the quadruple threat they have, however unintentionally, unleashed. Apparently even Time itself, must bow before the authoritative power of Destiny.

Who is he, then, to doubt?


End file.
